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Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Monday that the country’s transport minister Roman Starovoyt, 53, had died from a suspected suicide, on the same day that he was fired by President Vladimir Putin.
Several Telegram channels with close ties to the security services reported that Starovoyt, a former head of the Ukraine-bordering Kursk region, shot himself in his Tesla Model X, in a town west of Moscow.
Starovoyt’s death came amid a corruption probe into the construction of defensive fortifications in Kursk, which he governed until May 2024.
It marks the first suicide of a senior Russian official in years, and the first to came amid scrutiny over decisions made during the war in Ukraine.
The initial reports of Starovoyt’s suicide came just hours after Putin formally dismissed him from his ministerial post on Monday morning, though it was unclear whether he died before or after the decree was signed.
A criminal case has been launched against Starovoyt’s successor as governor of the Kursk region, parts of which were under partial Ukrainian control for six months until March 2025.
The investigation centres on alleged embezzlement during the construction of defensive fortifications.
Starovoyt was named in testimony by several figures involved in the case, including his successor in Kursk, Alexei Smirnov, according to Kommersant, one of Russia’s leading business outlets.
This is a developing story
