Russian oligarch victim of what appears to be fatal accident in India
The body of Pavel Antov, 65, a member of a regional parliament in Russia, was discovered Sunday in a pool of blood outside the luxury hotel in East India where he was vacationing with three other Russians. He fell to his death from the hotel terrace. On Thursday, one of his fellow passengers, Vladimir Bidenov, was found unconscious in the same hotel, apparently the victim of a heart attack, and could not be revived.
Police have reviewed all CCTV footage and questioned hotel staff pending detailed autopsies, but have so far found no evidence of a homicide. “All possible aspects regarding the deaths of the two Russians are being investigated,” said Rajesh Pandit, the regional police chief. The heart attack that caused Vladimir Bidenov’s death was likely caused by alcohol abuse and a possible drug overdose, he said.
As for Pavel Antov, “he was probably disturbed by the death of his friend and went to the hotel terrace, from where he probably fell to his death,” the police chief explained.
Pavel Antov, a member of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, has been a member of a regional parliament 150 kilometers east of Moscow since 2018. Before entering politics, he founded Vladimirski Standart, a company specializing in the import and export of sausage products, and in 2019 found himself at the top of the list of Russia’s richest deputies and politicians in the Russian edition of Forbes magazine.
In June, Russian media published a WhatsApp message attributed to Pavel Antov, in which they stated that the Russian bombings in Ukraine were acts of “terrorism”. Speaking on the Russian social network VK, Mr. Antov denied writing this message and reiterated that he supports “the special military operation”, the official formula used by the authorities to denote the war waged by Russia against Ukraine.