Pavel Antov, a Russian MP from the United Russia party, who
criticized Putin's war in Ukraine
last June , was found dead on Sunday evening after a fall from the third floor of a hotel in Rayagada, in the Indian state of Odisha.
The Indian authorities have speculated with the media that Antov, found unconscious in a pool of blood,
would have committed suicide in the throes of depression
following the disappearance, two days earlier, "apparently of a heart attack", of his friend Vladimir Budanov, also he Russian, who was part of the group of four tourists who had arrived at the hotel a few days earlier to celebrate Antov's 66th birthday.
Antov, who leaves behind a wife and a daughter,
headed a sausage empire
and was considered the richest politician in the entire Duma.
In 2019, Forbes Russia credited him with £130 million in earnings.
The Indian guide who accompanied Antov and the group of three other friends told reporters that they found him in a pool of blood and immediately had him transferred to hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead.
According to the Indian media, the local police officers, who have launched an investigation, do not exclude the possibility that Pavel Antov "committed suicide due to the depression that arose after the sudden death of his friend Budanov, which according to many rumours, occurred under mysterious circumstances" .
The hotel manager said that Budanov was completely drunk upon his arrival a few days earlier.
Elected from Vladimir Putin's party, last June Antov explicitly criticized the war and the air attacks on Kiev, calling them "terrorist", but later he "apologized sincerely" and reiterated that he had always supported Putin's military operation.