It’s a dramatic start of the week in Russia.
On Monday morning, President Vladimir Putin brought his minister of transportation, Roman Starovoit.
In the afternoon Starovoit was dead; His body was discovered in a park along Moscow with a gunshot wound in the head. A pistol, which is reported, beside the body.
Investigators say they consider the former minister to get his own life.
In Tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets this morning there is a sense of shock.
“Suicide in Roman Starovoit is just a few hours after the president’s order to seize him is an almost unique event in Russian history,” the paper stated.
That’s because you need to come back more than thirty years, until the Soviet Union falls, for an example of a government minister here killing themselves.
In August 1991, after the failure of the Communist Hillliners, one of the leader in the Coup ring – Soviet Interior Minister Boris Pugo – shot himself.
The Kremlin said a little about Starovoit’s death.
“How was it surprised that a federal minister was found dead hours after being fired by the President?” I asked Vladimir Putin Dmitry Peskov’s spokesperson at a Call to the Kremlin Conference.
“Normal people cannot be surprised at it,” Peskov replied. “Of course, it also surprised us.
“It’s up to the investigation to give answers to all questions. As it goes on, one can only think. But that’s more for media and political groups. No for us.”
Russian press has, in fact, full of estimation.
Today many Russian newspapers have been involved in what happened to Roman Starovoit at Kursk regional events that bound Ukraine. Before he taught as Minister of Transportation on May 2024, Starovoit was Kursk Regional Governor for more than five years.
Under his leadership – and with a large amount of money – Governor Starovoit launched the establishment of defensive walls along the border. It is not enough enough to prevent Ukraine troops to break and grab the territory of the Kursk region in the last year.
Since then, Starovoit’s heir as Governor, Alexei Smirnov, and his previous representative Alexei Alexei was arrested and charged with great fraud in construction of fortifications.
“Mr. Starovoit could be one of the principal seized in this case,” It is suggested that today’s edition of business everyday kommersant.
Russian authorities have not confirmed that.
But if the prosecution is afraid to drive a former minister to take his own minister to take his own life, what can we say about Russia today?
“The most dramatic part of this, with all the re-stalalisation that has been happening in Russia in recent years, is that a high-level government official (kills himself) because he has no other way of getting out of the system,” Says Nina Khrushcheva, Professor of International Affairs at the New School in New York.
“He feared that he received about ten years in prison if he was well known in the investigation, and his own suffering in 1937 that you did not give up.
Roman Starovoit’s death can make the headlines on paper here. But this “almost unique historical event in Russia” receives a small state TV coverage.
Maybe because the Kremlin recognizes television power to mold public opinions. In Russia, the TV is more influential than newspapers. So, when it comes to television, authorities are likely to be more careful and cautious in messaging.
Monday’s main news on Russia-1 includes a four-minute report about Putin pointing a new minister of transportation to new acting Andrei Nikitin.
Nothing mentioned that previous transportation transport was reiterated. Or that she was found dead.
Only forty minutes ago, until the end of the slang bulletin, briefly discussing a coming to the death of Roman Starovoit.
The NewsRoader allocates all 18 seconds to this, which means most Russians may not look at dramatic events on Monday as an important development.
For political elites, this story is different. For ministers, and other Russian officials seek to be a part of the political system, what happened to Starovoit serve as a warning.
“Not like before, if you get these jobs, be rich, promoting from regional level to a career, now, that’s not a career career,” says Nina Khrushcheva.
“Not only does any upward movement start with, but despite the low movement ends with death.”
This is a reminder of the dangers that come from falling into the system.
