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Business Rattled By 2 Killings

ST. PETERSBURG -- The head of a major shipping company, which was plagued by debts, has been shot to death at the door to his apartment in St. Petersburg.


In another apparent contract killing, a businessman was killed in Vladivostok in the Far East.


The deaths prompted calls Wednesday for tougher action to protect businessmen.


"There is an atmosphere of fear," said a press spokesman for the Russian Business Roundtable.


Ivan Luchinsky, 46, the director of the Baltic Shipping Company's board of directors, died of five gunshot wounds to the head Monday night, a spokeswoman for the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office said. Luchinsky's company, owes some 36 billion rubles ($8 million) to the government and more than $60 million to its Western partners.


Andrei Zakharenko, 32, chairman of the Primorrybprom fishing concern in Vladivostok, was fatally injured by a bomb blast as he entered his home Tuesday, police said. (Reuters, AP)

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