Russian Transport Minister Found Dead After Dismissal

By The Financial District
Jul 11
2 min read

Russia’s Transport Minister was found dead from a gunshot wound in an apparent suicide, investigators said, just hours after the Kremlin announced he had been dismissed by President Vladimir Putin, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Shortly after Putin’s decree on Starovoit was published, Andrei Korneichuk, a senior official with a state railways agency under the transport ministry, collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack during a business meeting. I Photo: Федеральное дорожное агентство Wikimedia Commons

The Kremlin did not give a reason for the firing of Roman Starovoit, who had served as transport minister since May 2024. It remains unclear when he died or whether his death was connected to an investigation into alleged corruption, as some Russian media suggested.

Reporting for The Telegraph, Memphis Barker noted that Svetlana Petrenko, a spokeswoman for the Russian Investigative Committee, said “suicide is the primary version,” but added that investigators were still working at the scene.

Some reports indicated Starovoit may have died late Saturday or early Sunday, according to Reuters.

Russian media have linked his dismissal to a probe into the embezzlement of state funds allocated for building fortifications in the Kursk region, where Starovoit previously served as governor before his cabinet appointment.

The alleged embezzlement has been cited as a contributing factor to Russia’s weakened defensive lines, which failed to prevent a surprise Ukrainian incursion into the region in August 2024.

In that attack, Ukraine’s mechanized units swiftly overran lightly armed Russian border guards and inexperienced army conscripts, with hundreds reportedly taken prisoner, TASS and other outlets reported.