Pavel Antov, a Russian sausage tycoon, was discovered dead in a hotel in India two days after a friend died on the same trip. They were in Odisha and the millionaire, who was also a local politician, had just celebrated his birthday at the hotel. Antov was a well-known figure in Vladimir, a city east of Moscow.
The millionaire’s death is the latest in a long line of unexplained deaths involving Russian tycoons, many of whom have openly criticised the war. News18 explains the controversy:
Who Was Pavel Antov and How Did He Die?
After a message appeared on Pavlov’s WhatsApp account last summer, he denied criticising Russia’s war in Ukraine.
According to Russian media, Antov, 65, fell from a window at a hotel in Rayagada on Sunday. Vladimir Budanov, another member of his four-man Russian group, died at the hotel on Friday.
Superintendent Vivekananda Sharma of Odisha police said Budanov was found to have suffered a stroke while his friend “was depressed after his death and he too died”. TASS reported that Russian consul in Kolkata, Alexei Idamkin said police do not believe there is a “criminal element” in these tragic events.
Pavel Antov had founded the Vladimir Standard meat processing plant, and Forbes estimated his fortune to be around $140 million (£118 million) in 2019, putting him at the top of Russia’s rich list of lawmakers and civil servants.
He was a key figure in Vladimir’s legislative assembly, chairing a committee on agrarian policy and ecology. The assembly’s deputy chairman Vyacheslav Kartukhin said he had died in “tragic circumstances”.
Was He Opposed to Putin’s War?
Late last June, he appeared to respond to a Russian missile attack on a residential block in Kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyi district, which killed a man and injured his seven-year-old daughter and her mother.
Antov’s WhatsApp message described how the family was rescued from the rubble: “It’s difficult to call this anything other than terror.”
The message was removed, and Antov then stated on social media that he supported the president, was a “patriot of my country,” and supported the war.
He insisted that the WhatsApp message came from someone whose viewpoint on the “special military operation in Ukraine” he strongly disagreed with. It was an extremely annoying misunderstanding that had been posted accidentally on his messenger, he explained.
‘A Larger Conspiracy at Work?’
However, since the start of the war, several high-profile Russian tycoons have died in mysterious circumstances, sparking controversy theories.
Most recently in September this year, Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Russia’s Lukoil oil giant, died after falling from a hospital window in Moscow.
Maganov, 67, died after a “severe illness,” according to the company, which confirmed his death. According to Russian media, he was being treated at Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital when he died of his injuries.
Maganov was among other high-profile business executive to perish in mysterious circumstances.
Authorities at the time had said they were working at the scene to determine how he died. According to Tass news agency, he fell out of a sixth-floor window early Thursday morning, adding later that he committed suicide.
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Lukoil board had called for the conflict to end as soon as possible, expressing its sympathy to victims of “this tragedy”. Vagit Alekperov, its billionaire president, resigned in April after the UK sanctioned him in response to the invasion.
Who Else Has Died?
In recent months, several Russian energy oligarchs have died in unusual circumstances, according to a report by the BBC:
- In April, the body of millionaire Novatek former manager Sergei Protosenya was discovered in a Spanish villa with his wife and daughter.
- A former vice-president of Gazprombank, Vladislav Avayev, was discovered dead in his Moscow flat in April with his wife and daughter.
- Alexander Subbotin, a former Lukoil tycoon, died of heart failure in May, reportedly after seeking alternative treatment from a shaman.
After Avayev’s death, Novatek, a major Russian natural gas producer, suggested that the idea that its former employee could be responsible for the deaths of his wife and daughter bore “no relation to reality,” a report by Business Insider said.
“Sergey Protosenya … established himself as an outstanding person and a wonderful family man, a strong professional who made a considerable contribution to the formation and development of the Company,” it said.
What Friends and Families of the Oligarchs Have Said
Friends and families of the deceased Russian businessmen said it was “unthinkable” that they killed themselves – and in some cases, their wives and children – and demanded an independent investigation into their deaths.
Igor Volobuyev, the Ukrainian-born ex-vice-chairman of Gazprombank, who left Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and joined the Freedom of Russia Legion, told The Insider that he believes his former colleague Vladislav Avayev’s alleged murder of his family and subsequent suicide was staged: “Why? That is a difficult statement to make. Perhaps he knew something and posed a threat.”
Similarly, Sergey Protosenya’s son, who was not in Spain at the time his parents and sister were discovered dead in Lloret de Mar, stated that his father was not the perpetrator (“my father is not a murderer”), but that his parents and sister were murdered by someone else.
Protosenya was the former CEO of gas giant Novatek, which issued a statement calling him a “true family man” and urging Spanish authorities to conduct an impartial investigation.
According to Bill Browder, a businessman and critic of the Russian federal government, Putin personally orders the executions of influential business leaders in critical sectors who he believes will not be yes men and intimidates their successors with threats of death or violence, reports say.
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