Former Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoit was found dead with a bullet in the head outside Moscow on Monday, hours after President Vladimir Putin dismissed him from his post.

Investigators are working at the scene of the facts to determine the circumstances of the incident. The main version is that it was a suicide," the Russian Investigative Committee reported.

The body of Starovoit, 53, was found in his private vehicle in the Odintsovo district, the committee added.

On Monday, Putin signed a decree on Starovoit's departure from the Russian Ministry of Transport. The document did not detail the reasons for the dismissal.

Russia has recently faced serious transportation problems during the conflict with Ukraine.

Starovoit's death comes after a series of Ukrainian attacks on major Russian airports and amid a rise in violent incidents such as fires and explosions on transportation lines, mainly railways, and cases of sabotage.

The Federal Air Transport Agency reported that nearly 500 cancellations and 2,000 flight postponements were recorded over the weekend due to security concerns related to Ukrainian drone attacks.

These attacks caused chaos at Russian airports, especially those in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Thousands of passengers were stranded and train tickets quickly sold out.

Ukrainian forces have recently stepped up their drone attacks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has insisted on asking for more support from Western countries, announced agreements with the United States and Denmark to increase the production of drones with the aim of striking strategic infrastructure in Russian territory.

Controversy over the construction of defense works in the Kursk region

Starovoit was appointed Minister of Transport in May 2024.

Before assuming that position, Starovoit was governor of the Kursk region.

The region was partially occupied by Ukrainian troops in August 2024 in a surprise offensive. Moscow only recently succeeded in expelling Ukrainian forces, although in late June Kyiv claimed it still controlled a small area of ??territory within Russia.

Starovoit’s successor, Aleksey Smirnov, briefly held the post.

He was arrested in April and later accused of embezzling funds intended for the construction of fortifications on the border with Ukraine.

According to the Russian outlet Kommersant, Starovoit was about to be indicted in the same case.

The exact date of his death is unknown.

The chairman of the State Duma’s Defense Committee, Andrei Kartapolov, told the Russian outlet RTVI that his death occurred “quite a while ago.”

On Monday, before Starovoit’s death was announced, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was questioned by reporters about whether the dismissal meant Putin had lost confidence in Starovoit after the Kursk events.

“There is talk of a loss of trust if there is such a loss. That expression was not used [in the Kremlin decree],” Peskov responded.

Putin appointed the former governor of the Novgorod region, Andrei Nikitin, who was serving as deputy transport minister, as the new transport minister.

Analysis by Sergei Goryashko, BBC Russian Service

The death of Roman Starovoit is an extraordinary event for Putin’s Russia. The last minister to commit suicide was Boris Pugo, head of the Soviet Interior Ministry, who took his own life after a failed coup in 1991. However, Starovoit’s story is more similar to the fate of another Soviet interior minister, Nikolai Shchelokov, who faced criminal charges for corruption after his dismissal. Shchelokov committed suicide in December 1984, the day after being stripped of all state honors (after being dismissed, expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and deprived of his rank as army general). Starovoit was removed “only” from his post as head of the Transport Ministry, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasizing that the dismissal decree did not include the phrase “for loss of confidence.” Judging by what happened next, even if there was no such “black mark” on his record, Starovoit apparently He was not at peace.

Presumably, for the last three months, Starovoit lived in fear of his own fate.

Cases where a detainee testifies against his superior are, to put it mildly, quite common in the Russian judicial system.

But until now, officials clung to the hope that their high-level connections would save them, or they might escape abroad.

But when it comes to ending their lives under threat of imprisonment in modern Russia, it is mainly law enforcement officers who are involved, and such cases are so rare that they can be counted on one hand.

Starovoit’s death is a significant milestone for the Russian elite.

It vividly illustrates the growing panic among officials in the face of the imminent threat of arrest, probably even among those who have never stolen anything themselves, but are fully aware of how their country’s judicial system works, the minuscule acquittal rate, and the appalling conditions in the penal colonies.