Roman Starovoyt arrives at a meeting with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on 7 May 2025. Photo: EPA/MAXIM SHEMETOV / POOL

The former head of Russia’s Transport Ministry, Roman Starovoyt, has been honoured at a farewell service in Moscow, Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported on Thursday, three days after he reportedly committed suicide after being dismissed as transport minister by Vladimir Putin on Monday.

The ceremony, attended by approximately 200 guests accompanied by a heavy police presence, was held at Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital, which is renowned for providing medical care to high-ranking Russian officials. Starovoyt’s funeral is due to take place in St. Petersburg on Friday.

Several senior Russian officials attended the service, including Starovoyt’s former cabinet colleagues — Industry and Trade Minister Anton Alikhanov, Deputy Prime Ministers Marat Khusnullin and Dmitry Grigorenko, as well as Starovoyt’s replacement as transport minister, Andrey Nikitin.

“I remember him as a worthy person,” Nikitin told journalists following the farewell ceremony.

Beyond Nikitin’s comments, as of Thursday, no Russian government ministers have publicly commented on Starovoyt’s passing or the circumstances of his death.

Putin did not attend the memorial service, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday, noting that “the president has other things on his work schedule today”.

Peskov added that Putin had sent a wreath to the ceremony instead, however, state news agency RIA Novosti later deleted the report as erroneous.

On Tuesday, Peskov confirmed that Putin had been informed of Starovoyt’s suicide, but declined to offer additional comment beyond expressing the Kremlin’s “shock” at the “tragic and sad” news.

The Russian Investigative Committee announced on Monday that Starovoyt had committed suicide in his car hours after Putin officially dismissed him via a decree posted to the Kremlin website.

However, a report by state-affiliated daily RBC appeared to contradict the Investigative Committee’s information, with sources telling the outlet that Starovoyt’s body had been found as early as Saturday — two days before his dismissal was officially announced by the Kremlin.

According to VCHK-OGPU, a Telegram channel with ties to Russian security services, Starovoyt, who was governor of Russia’s southwestern Kursk region from 2019 until 2024, was due to be charged with embezzling approximately 15 billion rubles (€162 million) from contracts related to the construction of fortifications along the region’s border with Ukraine.

Staravoyt’s death marks the most high-profile political suicide in Russia since August 1991, when Soviet Interior Minister Boris Pugo, Marshal Sergey Akromeyev, and several associates took their own lives after a failed putsch against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.