Russia’s transport minister in ‘suicide’ after sacking

Roman Starovoit was found dead from a gunshot wound hours after the Kremlin announced he had been dismissed by Vladimir Putin.

Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoit was found dead after the Kremlin announced he had been fired. Picture: AFP.

Russian's transport minister has been found dead from a gunshot wound in an apparent suicide, hours after the Kremlin announced he had been dismissed by President Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin did not give a reason for the firing of Roman Starovoit, transport minister since May 2024, and it was unclear when exactly he died and whether it was related to an investigation into alleged corruption, as some Russian media suggested.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, the top criminal investigation agency, said the body of Mr Starovoit, 53, was found with a gunshot wound in his car parked in Odintsovo, a neighbourhood just west of the capital where many members of Russia's elite live. A gun previously presented to him as an official gift was reportedly found next to his body.

A criminal probe was launched into the death, and investigators cited suicide as the most likely cause, according to committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko, who did not say when Mr Starovoit died.

Law enforcement agents were seen carrying Mr Starovoit's body from the site on Monday evening local time.

Russian law enforcement agents carry the body of former transport minister Roman Starovoit. Picture; AP.

Andrei Kartapolov, a former deputy defence minister who heads a defence committee in the lower house of parliament, told news outlet RTVI that Mr Starovoit killed himself “quite a while ago”, and some Russian media alleged that he may have taken his life before the publication of Putin’s decree firing him.

He was last seen in public on Sunday morning, when an official video from the ministry's situation room featured him receiving reports from officials.

Russian media reported that Mr Starovoit's dismissal could have been linked to an investigation into the embezzlement of state funds allocated for building fortifications in the Kursk region, where he served as governor before becoming transport minister.

The alleged embezzlement has been cited as one of the reasons for deficiencies in Russia's defensive lines that failed to stem a surprise Ukrainian incursion in the region launched in August 2024. In the stunning attack, Ukraine's battle-hardened mechanised units quickly overwhelmed lightly armed Russian border guards and inexperienced army conscripts.

The incursion was a humiliating blow to the Kremlin – the first time the country’s territory had been occupied by an invader since World War II.

The Russian military had announced its troops had fully reclaimed the border territory in April – nearly nine months after losing chunks of the region.

Mr Starovoit's successor as Kursk governor, Alexei Smirnov, stepped down in December and was arrested on embezzlement charges in April. Some Russian media have alleged that Mr Starovoit also could have faced charges as part of the investigation.

His dismissal also followed a weekend of travel chaos as Russian airports were forced to ground hundreds of flights due to Ukrainian drone attacks. Most commentators said, however, that the air traffic disruptions have become customary amid frequent Ukrainian drone raids, and were unlikely to have triggered his dismissal.

Shortly after Putin’s decree on Mr Starovoit was published, Andrei Korneichuk, an official with a state railways agency under his ministry, collapsed and died during a business meeting, Russian news reports said. They said he died of an apparent heart attack.

An official order releasing Mr Starovoit from his post was published on the Kremlin’s website on Monday morning without giving a reason for his dismissal.

Shortly before the news of Mr Starovoit’s death broke, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised his replacement, Andrei Nikitin, and refused to comment on the reasons behind the move.

Russian authorities have investigated a slew of cases of high-level corruption widely blamed for military setbacks in Ukraine.

AP