London TV chef and Putin critic mysteriously found dead in hotel after fleeing to UK in wake of Ukraine invasion

A RUSSIAN TV chef who fled to London after opposing Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine war has been found dead in a Belgrade hotel.

Alexei Zimin, 52, died suddenly on a promotional tour to the Serbian capital, where authorities said the cause remained “unclear”.

He is the latest in a long line of Putin enemies to die suddenly since the start of the bloody conflict in February 2022.

The once-popular figure on Russian cooking shows owned Zima restaurant in Soho, which he founded after leaving Russia in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Crimea.

He had not set foot in his homeland since his gastronomic show on Russia’s NTV channel was abruptly cancelled in 2022.

He blasted Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and posted anti-war songs.

The outspoken star had also been editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of GQ magazine.

A statement today from his Zima magazine said: “Alexei Zimin, the project’s editor-in-chief and the chef of the Zima restaurant, has passed away.

“Alexei was not only a colleague, he was our friend, a close person with whom we were lucky to go through a lot – both good, kind and sad.

“Thank you to everyone for the words we receive today about Alexei. We are hurting together with you.

“The entire Zima team expresses condolences to Alexei’s family and mourns together with them.”

Zimin’s shows had run for 11 years before being halted following his anti-war stand, four months after Russia’s invasion.

He died while on an advertised tour promoting his new book called Anglomania.

His London restaurant in Frith Street was advertised as offering “Russian cuisine with a modern twist in the heart of Soho”.

His Zima Club ran “various ‘workshops, parties and other events” and is popular with Russian expats in the UK.

It was seen as providing a platform for Russians labelled “foreign agents” by the Kremlin, and forced into exile.

Zimin is survived by his wife Tatiana ‘Tanya’ Dolmatovskaya, a costume designer who previously worked at Vogue Russia and graduated from the University of the Arts London, and their daughter Varvara, 17.

In a post three months after Putin’s invasion he said: “Russia will be free, one way or another, or the third, more mysterious, way.”

On his cancellation by pro-Kremlin NTV, he said: “11 years. For 22 television seasons I had a programme on Saturday morning prime time on NTV.

“Since May it has been gone….there will be no new episodes because of the host’s anti-war position.

“Do I regret it? No, I regret that we ended up participating in the war. I do not participate in the war, the war participates in me.”

He had also posted: “Stop the war. Withdraw troops. Return our soldiers home.”

Zimin joins a list of Russians who have died early after fleeing Putin’s rule to “Moscow-on-Thames”.

They include oligarch and political fixer Boris Berezovsky, found hanged in his Berkshire home in 2013, and his associate Nikolai Glushkov, found dead from compression to the neck five years later.

Putin’s secret services poisoned former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko with deadly radioactive polonium-210 in London in 2008.

He died but an attempt to kill Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer who spied for the UK, failed despite the use of nerve agent novichok.

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