The Russian Minister of Transport, who also served as governor of the Kursk region prior to the burglaries of Ukraine, was only found dead after Russian President Vladimir Putin had fired him out of his ministerial role.
Roman Starovoyt, 53, was found dead by a shot wound in his car, and the Russian investigation committee – the most important criminal investigative agency in Moscow – said that, according to several reports, it was investigated the circumstances surrounding his death, including suicide.
Starovoyt supervised the Kursk region for more than half a decade before he was made Minister of Transport in May 2024.
The Russian transport Minister Roman Starovoyt arrives at a meeting of President Vladimir Putin with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in the Kremlin in Moscow on May 7, 2025. (Maxim Shemetov/Pool/AFP via Getty images)
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The invasion of Ukraine of Kursk – who ended earlier this year – not only shocked the international community with the inability of Moscow to stop the invasion immediately, but led Russia to look at Allied Nations such as Noord -Korea to send extra boots to the ground.
The incident also received a rapid reprimand from Putin and led to the arrest of at least two officials accused of embezzlement funds who should have been used to protect the border with Ukraine, Reuters reported in April.
The Russian President Vladimir Putin (C), accompanied by Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak (L) and head of the Federal Road Office Roman Starovoyt, points to the map while inspecting the location of the substructure bridge over the Kerch-Zeestraat, which will connect Russia and the Krim Schoensula. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty images)
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Some reporting suggested that Starovoyt knew that his time as Minister of Transport would probably be demolished quickly, although an East2West report also noticed that he left his office without saying goodbye to his colleagues.
“According to the source, he suspected about his upcoming resignation, but he only discovered this morning,” said the media outlet. “At 9.15 am the news about the president’s order appeared.”
By 9:35 am Starovoyt apparently ordered his secretary to leave and then locked himself in his office. Then he left the building around 10 am
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R), accompanied by the Russian head of the Crimea Sergei Aksyonov (C) and head of the Federal Road Office Roman Starovoyt (L), inspects the location of the Substructure Bridge over the Kerch Strait, which Inspect on the island of Tuzla, on the island of Tuzla. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty images)
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The Kremlin confirmed that he was fired from the Topbaan before it was revealed that Starovoyt was dead after his girlfriend, Polina Korneva, 25, reportedly found him dead in a prosperous neighborhood outside of Moscow.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov rejected questions about whether Starovoyt had ended from his position about a loss of trust, Russian news broadcasts reported.
