A prominent Russian chef and outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin 's regime, who lost a TV competition for criticizing him, was found dead in a Serbian hotel room. Alexei Zimin's sudden death comes with a backdrop of growing threats and mysterious incidents involving exiled Russian dissidents.

The Russian journalist, chef and businessman Alexei Zimin has died at the age of 52, in Serbia, according to media reports.

For us, 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.'