The death of the Russian minister serves as a warning to a political elite

It was a dramatic start to the week in Russia.

On Monday morning, President Vladimir Putin fired his transport minister Roman Starovit.

Starovoit was dead by the afternoon; His body was found in a park on the edge of Moscow with a firearm in the head. Pistol, supposedly, to the body.

Investigators said they suggested that the former minister had taken his life.

There was a sense of shock in the tabloid Moscow Komsomoleta this morning.

“The suicide of Roman Starovit just hours after the president’s order to fire him is an almost unique event in Russian history,” the document said.

This is because you have to return more than thirty years before the fall of the Soviet Union, as an example of a government minister here who is killing.

In August 1991, after the failure of the coup by communist hardliners, one of the leaders of the coup ring – Soviet Interior Minister Boris Pugo – shot himself.

The Kremlin said a little about the death of Starovit.

“How shocked were you that the Federal Minister was found dead only hours after being fired by the president?” I asked Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov for a conference conversation in the Kremlin.

“Normal people cannot be shocked by this,” Peskov replied. “Of course, it also shocked us.

“It is up to the investigation to provide answers to all questions. Although it continues, one can only speculate. But it is more about the media and political professionals. Not for us.”

The Russian press was really full of speculation.

Today, several Russian newspapers associate what happened to the Roman Starovit with events in the Kursk area, which borders with Ukraine. Prior to his appointment as Minister of Transport in May 2024, Starovit has been a regional governor of Kursk for more than five years.

Under his leadership – with large sums of government money – Governor Starovoit has started the construction of defense fortifications along the border. They were not strong enough to prevent Ukrainian troops from breaking down and seizing the territory in the Kursk region last year.

Since then, the heir to Starovit, as governor Alexey Smirnov and his former deputy Alexei Dedov, have been arrested and accused of large -scale fraud in connection with the construction of the fortifications.

“Starovoit can become one of the main defendants in this case,” proposed today’s Business Daily Kommersant edition.

The Russian authorities have not confirmed this.

But if the fear of criminal persecution has forced a former minister to take his life, what does this tell us about today’s Russia?

“The most dramatic part of this, with all the re-standing that has been happening in Russia in recent years, is that the government officer at a high level (kills itself), since there is no other way to get out of the system,” says Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of international relations at the new school in New York.

“He must have feared that he would receive tens of years in prison, if he would be under an investigation and that his family would suffer a lot. So there is no way out. I immediately remembered Sergo Orgesidze, one of the ministers of Stalin, who (killed) in 1937, because you felt there was no way.

The death of Roman Starovit may have made titles in the documents here. But this “almost unique event in Russian history” has received minimal coverage on state television.

Perhaps this is because the Kremlin recognizes the power of television to shape public opinion. In Russia, television is more influential than newspapers. So when it comes to television, the authorities tend to be more careful and cautious from the messages.

The main evening news newsletter on Monday in Russia-1 includes a four-minute Putin report, appointing a new acting Minister of Transport, Andrei Nikitin.

It was not at all mentioned that the previous Minister of Transport was fired. Or that he was found dead.

Just forty minutes later, towards the end of the newsletter, the anchor mentioned briefly the death of Roman Starovit.

The news reader dedicated all 18 seconds to him, which means that most Russians are not likely to consider the dramatic events on Monday as a significant development.

For the political elite, this is a different story. For ministers, governors and other Russian employees who have sought to be part of the political system, what happened to Starovoit will serve as a warning.

“Unlike before, when you can get these jobs, to fear, to rise from a regional level at the federal level, today it is obviously not a career path if you want to stay alive,” says Nina Khrushcheva.

“There is only no upward mobility, but even down mobility ends with death.”

This is a reminder of the dangers that result from the inconvenience of the system.