A Tragic Incident in High Society: Viktor Averin, Head of the Solntsevskaya Group, Perishes in an Airboat Accident Alongside a Confidant of Putin and a Young Model

• 22.12.2025 10:47

A source for the Media provided details of the death of Viktor Averin, the leader of the Solntsevskaya organized crime group. He was sailing with Viktor Khmarin, a classmate of Vladimir Putin and the father of the CEO of RusHydro, to inspect a recently acquired forest plot. They were traveling with a 2007 model.

According to the source, the accident involved a "Sever" airboat—a specialized rigid-bottomed, air-supported vessel designed, among other things, for winter use and navigation on first ice. Such boats require precise control, especially when exiting the water onto ice.

The vessel was registered on December 9 of this year to the owner of JSC Marine Oil Terminal, Crimea’s largest oil depot. The application for the route was submitted through the Gosuslugi website.

The day before the accident, a boat carrying VIP passengers left the Royal Yacht Club (Moscow) and was heading toward the village of Pestovo. As the surviving passengers later explained, they were sailing to inspect a recently purchased forest plot and were returning.

Preliminary investigators have two theories. While exiting the canal, the boat spun around at high speed, its bottom catching on the ice, causing it to capsize. Alternatively, it skidded sideways while entering the ice: the ice broke, the buoy hit, and the boat capsized. As a result, the passengers ended up in the water.

A similar boat, the Sever, was dispatched from the Admiral Yacht Club (in the waters of the Mitishchi District) to rescue them. The vessel, which sank, remains upside down. A tugboat from Moscow was dispatched to retrieve it.

According to all those on board, Viktor Averin was the pilot of the airboat. He did not have a small craft operator’s license. According to the State Inspectorate for Small Vessels (GIMS) database, he had no license at all.

There were six people on board. We are publishing the full list of passengers.

Averin, Viktor Sergeevich - died;

Khmarin, Viktor Nikolaevich, born in 1949; (a classmate of Vladimir Putin, his name was carefully concealed from the passenger list after the accident)

Perekatov, Dmitry Leonidovich, born February 18, 1970 (Lawyer at Khmarin & Partners)

Abramushin, Ivan Ivanovich, born October 16, 1990; (a native of Kazakhstan, was registered at the Olympic Reserve School, presumably a bodyguard)

Aliyev, Shamisdan Ismail ogly, born July 26, 1964; (Azerbaijani businessman close to Khmarin)

Ekaterina Andreevna Leonova, born April 26, 2007 (model from the Tula region, subscribed to users as porn services, Onlyfans).

Maria Sharapova