Another Russian Critic of Putin's War Has Died After Falling From a Window

A Russian politician who once criticized President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine was found dead after a fall from a window in India.

Pavel Antov, a member of Putin's United Russia party and a wealthy sausage tycoon, was found lying in a pool of blood outside the Hotel Sai International in Rayagada, in the southern state of Odisha, on Saturday, according to local media reports.

Antov died two days after his friend, Vladimir Bidenov, was found dead in a room at the same hotel, India's NDTV reported.

Alexei Idamkin, Russia's consul general in Kolkata, told the Tass news agency that Antov "fell" from a window.

Idamkin said that foul play was not suspected in the death of either man.

"We are aware of the deaths of two Russian citizens. We are in touch with the relatives of these people and the police department of the city where it happened," he told the state RIA Novosti news agency. Bidenov's body had already been cremated, he said.

Odisha's Director General of Police, Sunil Kumar Bansal, ordered a Crime Branch probe into the two deaths since foreign nationals were involved, The Indian Express newspaper reported.

The paper quoted Bansal as saying that the initial post-mortem report attributed Bidenov's death to a heart attack, but authorities were still waiting for final autopsy reports on both men. The inquiry so far into Antov's death had not suggested foul play, Bansal said.

The two men were in a group of four Russian tourists staying at the hotel.

Newsweek has contacted Russian and Indian authorities for further comment.

Antov is the latest prominent Russian to die in mysterious circumstances since the invasion of Ukraine began, including some who have criticized it.

In June, he apparently reacted to a Russian missile attack on a residential building in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv by writing in a WhatsApp message that it's "extremely difficult to call all this anything but terror," the BBC reported.

The message was then deleted and Antov wrote on social media that it had been posted accidentally.

He said he supported Putin, was a "patriot of my country" and supported the invasion of Ukraine.

His death comes after Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Russian oil giant Lukoil, died in September after falling from a hospital window in Moscow.

Lukoil's board of directors had issued a statement in March expressing "its deepest concerns about the tragic events in Ukraine."

There has been several other cases of Russians mysteriously falling from windows to their deaths.

In August, Dan Rapoport, a Latvian-American investment banker and outspoken Putin critic, died after a fall from a luxury apartment building in Washington, D.C.

Police said they didn't suspect foul play, but Rapoport's friends have said they fear he was assassinated.