International Desk: Russia’s former transport minister Roman Starovoit committed suicide on Monday, the country’s Investigative Committee said. His bullet-riddled body was found in a car on the outskirts of Moscow within hours of his dismissal.
FP reported from Moscow that the Investigative Committee said in a statement, “Today, the body of former transport minister Roman Starovoit was found inside a private car in the Odintsovo district. He had bullet wounds on his body. The mainstream is considering it a suicide.”
Starovoit, 53, had been Russia’s transport minister since May last year. Before that, he was governor of the Kursk region bordering Ukraine, where Russian forces have been fighting Ukrainian infiltration.
State media and news agencies also reported that Starovoit shot himself. However, there was no confirmed information about when he committed suicide.
A few hours earlier, the Kremlin issued a presidential decree saying President Vladimir Putin had dismissed him from his post as Transport Minister. The brief announcement read, “Roman Starovoit has been dismissed from his post as Transport Minister.”
Russian media reported that he was dismissed in the wake of travel chaos at Russian airports following the Ukrainian drone strike. However, there have also been rumors of corruption charges against him in the Kursk region and a possible case of embezzlement of funds allocated for the construction of a defense system in the border area.
However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said before Starovoit’s death that his dismissal was “not related to a lack of trust.”
Immediately after his dismissal as Transport Minister, President Putin met with the ministry’s deputy minister, Andrei Nikitin, and appointed him acting minister.
