Former Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoyt was discovered lifeless in an obvious suicide hours after being dismissed by President Putin.
Russia’s former Transport Minister Roman Starovoyt died by suicide on Monday, July 7, 2025, simply hours after being dismissed from his submit by President Vladimir Putin. “Right now, within the Odintsovo district [of Moscow]… Roman Vladimirovich Starovoit was present in his automotive with a gunshot wound,” a spokesperson from Russia’s Investigative Committee was quoted as saying by the state-run TASS information company. The spokesperson stated that police investigators “are working on the scene to find out” the reason for demise, including that preliminary findings level to suicide. Investigators are treating suicide as the first idea for his demise, in line with the state-run TASS information company.
The presidential decree saying Starovoyt’s dismissal, revealed on the Kremlin’s web site, didn’t specify a purpose for his removing. Nonetheless, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that the dismissal was on account of a “lack of belief,” stating that such wording was absent from the decree. Stories from Russian enterprise newspaper Vedomosti, citing nameless authorities sources, advised the choice to interchange Starovoyt had been made “a number of months in the past.”
Starovoyt, who was 53, had been appointed Transport Minister in Could 2024, following Putin’s re-election, serving for simply over a yr. Previous to this, he had been the governor of the southwestern Kursk area from 2018 to 2024. His tenure as governor got here below scrutiny after a Ukrainian army incursion into Kursk in August 2024, which reportedly uncovered deficiencies within the area’s border fortifications.
Whereas Starovoyt was not formally charged, his successor as governor, Alexei Smirnov, and former deputy Alexei Dedov, had been arrested in April for allegedly embezzling funds earmarked for defence functions. Kommersant newspaper reported that Smirnov and different suspects had just lately testified towards Starovoyt. Political analyst Yevgeny Minchenko described Starovoyt’s dismissal as “predictable,” linking it to the “Kursk area state of affairs.”
Starovoyt has been succeeded by Deputy Transportation Minister Andrei Nikitin, who will function performing transportation minister. Putin later met with Nikitin, urging him to give attention to the urgent challenges going through the transport sector. Nikitin had joined the ministry as deputy in February, after resigning as governor of the Novgorod area. Two transport trade sources additionally informed Reuters that plans for Nikitin to interchange Starovoyt had been in movement since earlier than final month’s Worldwide Financial Discussion board in St Petersburg.