Pavel Antov, a Russian sausage tycoon, died in India after falling from the third floor of a hotel, local police confirmed.  

Mr Antov’s death came barely a few days after his friend and travel companion, Vladimir Budanov, died of a heart attack. 

A senior police official in India’s northeastern Odisha state, Vivekanand Sharma, who confirmed the incident, said Mr Antov died by “suicide” after falling from the hotel window in Rayagada district. 

Mr Sharma added that the postmortem report to ascertain the true cause of the death had not been released yet. 

“The case had been ruled an ‘unnatural death’ which includes deaths resulting from accidents and suicides,” he added.

Mr Antov, a businessman and member of a regional parliament in the Vladimir region in western Russia, celebrated his 65th birthday on December 22. He founded the Vladimir Standard meat processing plant and topped the 2018 Forbes ranking of the 100 richest civil servants in Russia. Then, his income amounted to about 9.97 billion rubles. 

He was a staunch supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mr Antonov pledged his support for Mr Putin last June when he denied criticising Russia’s war in Ukraine after a message appeared on his WhatsApp account. He blamed it on an “unfortunate misunderstanding and a technical error” and said the status had been deleted. 

The millionaire’s death is the latest in a series of unexplained deaths involving Russian tycoons since the start of the Russian invasion, many of whom have openly criticised the war.

At least a dozen high-profile Russian businessmen have reportedly died by suicide or unexplained accidents this year, with six associated with Russia’s largest energy companies. 

Last week, Alexander Buzakov, the head of a major Russian shipyard specialising in building non-nuclear submarines, suddenly died with no cause of death given by the authorities.

In September, Anatoly Gerashchenko, the former rector of the Moscow Aviation Institute, died in an “unspecified accident”. 

Also, Lukoil chairman Ravil Maganov died at the beginning of September after falling out of the window of a hospital in Moscow.

On September 10, 2022, Russian businessman Ivan Pechorin, the top manager for the Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, was found dead in Vladivostok. He drowned near Cape Ignatyev in Vladivostok. 

Another top Lukoil manager, Alexander Subbotin, was found dead near Moscow in May after reportedly visiting a shaman.