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The mysterious suicide of Putin's minister: A warning to Moscow's political elites?

2025-07-09 19:37:27Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA ALEKSEI STRELNIKOV
The mysterious suicide of Putin's minister: A warning to Moscow's
Roman Starovoit

Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoyt was found dead. President Putin had dismissed the 53-year-old from his post shortly before. The circumstances and consequences are unclear.

The news alarmed Russia's elite, Russian commentators say: On July 7, the body of Roman Starovoi was found with a gunshot wound in the town of Odintsovo district in the Moscow region. Just hours earlier, the Minister of Transport was dismissed by Putin.

The Russian Investigative Committee suspects suicide, Russian media report. Possible motive: Criminal proceedings are being prepared against Starovoit for alleged embezzlement of budget funds during the construction of fortifications in the Kursk region on the border with Ukraine. Before his appointment as transport minister, Starovoit served as governor there.

Just days before his death, Starovoit had personally reported to Putin on the development of a network of airports designed to increase the capacity of Russian aviation.

Starovoit seemed as confident and calm as ever. In June, at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, he spoke enthusiastically about new investment projects and made it clear that he wanted to be involved in their implementation.

Career thanks to the oligarchs?

Roman Starovoit was born in Kursk. His father worked at the local nuclear power plant. Starovoit graduated from college in St. Petersburg, where he later worked in construction before entering the civil service.

In the St. Petersburg government, he oversaw investment projects and apparently worked with structures linked to the Rotenberg family. Brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg are oligarchs and are considered close confidants of President Vladimir Putin.

According to political scientist Abbas Galyamov, the Rotenbergs' support was crucial to Starovoi's further career. In 2018, Vladimir Putin appointed him acting governor of the Kursk region.

He was later formally elected to the post, but in 2024, at the suggestion of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, he was transferred to the Kremlin. Starovoi's deputy, Alexei Smirnov, became the new governor of Kursk.

Kremlin: Dismissal not due to "loss of trust"

During Russia's aggression against Ukraine, Starovoit oversaw the construction of fortifications along the Russian-Ukrainian border in the Kursk region, worth 19.4 billion rubles (about 210 million euros). However, audits revealed massive violations and showed fraud in the implementation of the contract.

Senior officials, including Starovoi's successor, Smirnov, were brought under suspicion. As the Russian newspaper Kommersant reports, shortly before Starovoi's death, several of the defendants testified in court, apparently including Smirnov himself. Their statements may have become part of the investigation against the former governor.

Immediately after Starovoi's dismissal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed that this decision was not due to a "loss of trust." However, some political analysts linked the news to the investigations in the Kursk region.

Is suicide credible?

Starovoit allegedly committed suicide with an honorary weapon he received in 2023. Initially, it was reported that the politician shot himself in his car.

But later, a video surfaced online showing Starovoi's body being placed on a stretcher in a lawn some distance from the car.

The mysterious suicide of Putin's minister: A warning to Moscow's
The place where Starovoi's body was found

There are also conflicting reports about the date of death. Some media outlets had reported that the body was discovered on July 5. However, this contradicts a press release from the Ministry of Transport dated July 6, according to which Starovoit attended a meeting regarding a tanker that was leaking in the port of Ust-Luga near St. Petersburg that day.

Political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov believes that all this is evidence of "chaos and mild panic in government structures."

He also points out that Starovoi's obituary appeared only on the website of the Ministry of Transport and only after the announcement of the appointment of a new minister.

"The tradition of expressing condolences is an important signal for current officials and the faithful in general," Vinogradov writes on his Telegram channel. This also applies to employees of the Ministry of Transport: "In the morning, people came to work in a changed reality, in the afternoon they were in shock, and in the evening they were asked to act as if nothing important or interesting had happened."

"The self-preservation instinct of the elites"

Pro-Kremlin political scientist Sergei Markov speaks on his Telegram channel about a "shock for the Russian elites" and expresses doubts about the suicide. With this version, the political scientist suspects, those "against whom he could have testified after his arrest" were trying to cover up the murder.

Political scientist Galyamov considers suicide a possibility, but does not rule out that conspiracy theories may also find supporters: "Most people, when informed about this case, may believe that corrupt high-ranking officials wanted to eliminate a witness and accomplice in their crimes in this way."

According to Galyamov, the case could damage the state's reputation - especially in the eyes of the bureaucrats themselves. He believes that the Rotenberg oligarchs could have protected Starovoi and removed him from the list of defendants.

"They couldn't or didn't want to do this," says Galyamov, adding that Starovoit himself should have known that the justice system in Russia was dysfunctional due to the breakdown of state institutions.

Political scientist Yekaterina Shulman believes that Starovoi's mysterious death could awaken a sense of self-preservation among the country's elites, who may see the incident as a warning sign.

"How can we stay in power without killing ourselves and destroying our families?" the elites may ask themselves, says Shulman. She hopes that what will prevail in Russia will not be "the most harmless tsar," but instead "binding rules for everyone" in the form of laws./ DW

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