Experts are insisting that the many mysterious deaths of oligarchs and Putin critics are beginning to look like a Russian purge. In Russia, New York, London, and now India many who have spoken out against February’s invasion of Ukraine have died.

Just last week 2 oligarchs on a business trip died. 

Pavel Antov, 65, the Russia-based sausage king was killed at a hotel in India in a puzzling fall from the window in his room. And another business associate died of a reported stroke just two days before Antov died.

Superintendent Vivekananda Sharma of the Odisha Indian police said Mr. Budanov suffered a stroke while his friend "was depressed after his death and he too died". 

The Russian consul spokesman, Alexei Idamkin, told Tass news that police did not find any "criminal element in these tragic events".

Russian purge suspected

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th. And that’s when the Russian oligarch class started dying off. Apparently, they are becoming suicidal, accident-prone, and homicidal at an alarming rate.

In September the chairman of oil giant Lukoil, Ravil Maganov, 67, apparently fell from a 6th-floor hospital window in Moscow. According to TASS ”He was [getting treated] in the hospital after a heart attack.”

Most of the deaths have appeared to look like suicide. Several have died in what looks like murder-suicides along with their wives and children. 

Dan Rapoport, a New York-based writer and another Putin critic, also had a puzzling end. He fell out of his penthouse window. It was reported on Telegram that he died by suicide.

Rapoport’s dog was found in a park, with a suicide note and a large amount of cash. His widow, Alena Rapoport, continues to claim her husband was murdered.

Businessman and politician

The millionaire businessman also had a seat on the legislative assembly in Vladimir.  Vyacheslav Kartukhin, deputy chairman of the assembly called the death a set of "tragic circumstances".

Pavel Antov co-founded the Vladimir Standard meat processing plant in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow. In 2019 his fortune was estimated at $140m (£118m). And that put him near the top of Russia's rich list of civil servants.

Last summer a post from Antov’s account appeared on his WhatsApp claiming, "It's extremely difficult to call all this anything but terror."

 The message criticized a Russian missile attack on a residential block in Kyiv that left a father and his seven-year-old daughter dead and her mother wounded.

The message was quickly deleted.  Antov posted his account was hacked by someone that he did not agree with. And that he supported Putin, was a "patriot of my country" and also backed the war.