Full List of Russians Who Fell to Their Deaths This Year

Sausage tycoon Pavel Antov was found dead at a hotel in India on Christmas Day, adding to a long list of rich Russians who have died since the war in Ukraine began.

Antov died after falling from a window at the hotel in the city of Rayagada, according to the BBC.

Suspicious deaths involving Russian oligarchs, officials and public figures have occurred since January. Many had openly criticized the war, the BBC said.

Here is a look at the details surrounding Antov's death and that of other Russians who lost their lives in a similar manner since the war started.

Pavel Antov

Russian media said Antov, 65, died only two days after one of the people he was traveling with, Vladimir Budanov, died after suffering an apparent stroke.

Superintendent Vivekananda Sharma of the Odisha state police said Antov "was depressed after [Budanov's] death and he too died," according to the BBC report.

Alexei Idamkin, the Russian consul in Kolkat (formerly Calcutta), told Tass, the Russian government news agency, that the police did not see a "criminal element in these tragic events."

In late June, a message on Antov's WhatsApp account reacted to a missile attack in a district of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital. The attack resulted in the death of a man and his 7-year-old daughter. The message said it was "extremely difficult to call all this anything but terror."

But the message was later deleted, and Antov later posted on social media that he remained a supporter of Russia's president and was a patriot who supported the war.

He said that the message was sent from someone who held opinions that were not his and that he strongly disagreed with them. He also insisted that the message had been posted accidentally on his What'sApp account and said he was highly annoyed by the misunderstanding.

Anatoly Geraschenko

The former head of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) from 2007 to 2015, Anatoly Gerashchenko died on September 21.

Russian media outlets described his death as an accident. They said the scientist "fell from a great height" down a flight of stairs inside the institute's headquarters. He was declared dead at the scene by paramedics.

The institute told Tass that an investigation was being launched into Geraschenko's death. It also said that the incident was a "colossal loss for the MAI and the scientific and pedagogical community," according to a Daily Beast report.

Ravil Maganov

Ravil Maganov, who was chairman of Lukoil, Russia's second-largest oil producer and biggest private oil company, was found dead on September 1.

According to reports from Russian media outlets, he had fallen from the window of a hospital in Moscow.

Russia's Interfax news agency said Maganov "fell from a window at Central Clinical Hospital and died from injuries sustained." But the reports did not explain why Maganov was in the hospital.

Reuters, citing two sources, said it was told that those close to Maganov believed it was highly unlikely he had taken his life.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment about the three deaths.