A wealthy Russian businessman and lawmaker from Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party died after falling from a hotel window in India over the weekend, multiple news outlets reported.
Pavel Antov, 65, who topped Forbes’ list of the richest Russian lawmakers in 2019, plunged to his death two days after a fellow Russian he was traveling with was found dead in the same hotel.
He joins a rapidly growing list of prominent Russian figures found dead in mysterious circumstances.
Antov’s lifeless body was found in front of his hotel in the eastern Indian state of Odisha on Saturday, according to Russian news outlet Zebra-TV.
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Antov, the founder and vice president of the hugely successful Vladimir Standard meat company, had been vacationing in India with a group of tourists when local police say he apparently fell out the window, the outlet reported.
Over the summer, Antov wrote a scathing post on social media condemning Russia’s airstrikes on Ukraine, calling it an act of terror.
“The center of decision-making is today an ordinary residential building in the Shevchenkivskyidistrict… In truth, it’s extremely hard to call this anything other than terror,” Antov wrote. He later edited his post, calling the initial version a “misunderstanding” and “technical error” and stressing that he had “always supported the Russian president.”
He became the 13th prominent Russian figure to die in strange circumstances after criticizing Putin this year.
