Roman Starovoyt is presented with a gun as an award for his service, 18 October 2023. Photo: Kursk region governor’s press service
Russia’s sacked Transport Minister Roman Starovoyt has committed suicide in his car in Odintsovo, near Moscow, the Russian Investigative Committee confirmed on Monday.
Earlier on Monday, Vladimir Putin had dismissed Starovoyt and appointed his deputy Andrey Nikitin as acting transport minister according to a decree on the Kremlin website.
While the exact time of his death remains unconfirmed, a source told Russian state-affiliated daily RBC that Starovoyt’s body had been found as early as Saturday — two days before the Kremlin announced his dismissal. This report contradicts the official Investigative Committee’s announcement that says his body was found on Monday. Telegram channel SHOT claimed that Starovoyt had killed himself with a gun he received as an award from the Interior Ministry in 2023.
VCHK-OGPU, a channel with ties to Russian security services, said that Starovoyt, who had served as governor of Russia’s western Kursk region from 2019 until 2024, was facing criminal charges for embezzlement of approximately 15 billion rubles (€162 million) on contracts for the construction of fortifications along the border with Ukraine.
Telegram channel 112 said that another former governor of the Kursk region, Alexey Smirnov, who was arrested in April in connection with the same embezzlement case, had made statements implicating Starovoyt.
Starovoyt had served as the minister of transport for a little over a year. His sacking came at a time of chaos in Russian aviation due to the war with Ukraine, with huge disruption over the weekend of 5–6 July paralysing operations at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo, St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo, and Nizhny Novgorod’s Strigino airports.
State-affiliated business daily Vedomosti wrote that the reshuffle had been in the pipeline for months, and Nikitin had resigned as governor of the Novgorod region, a position he held from February 2017 to February 2025, to move to the ministry.