A Russian minister that Putin fired was discovered dead.

Former Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoit was discovered dead, reportedly from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee.

Earlier Monday, President Vladimir Putin fired him.

Starovoit was fired without explanation, and Andrei Nikitin, the deputy minister of transport, was soon named as his successor.

The Investigative Committee stated that it was investigating the incident’s circumstances.

Starovoit was appointed minister of transport in May 2024.

Before that, Starovoit had served as governor of the Kursk region for almost six years, until May 2024.

The region was partly seized by Ukrainian troops in August 2024 in a surprise offensive. Moscow only recently managed to drive out the Ukrainian forces, although in late June Kyiv said it was still holding a small area of territory inside Russia.

Starovoit’s successor, Aleksey Smirnov, was only in post for a short while. He was arrested in April and was later accused of embezzling funds that had been allocated for the building of fortifications on the border with Ukraine.

According to Russian outlet Kommersant, Starovoit was about to be brought in as a defendant in the same case.

It is unclear when, exactly, Starovoit died.

The head of the State Duma Defence Committee, Andrei Kartapolov, told Russian outlet RTVI that his death occurred “quite a while ago”.

Earlier on Monday, before Starovoit’s death was announced, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was pressed by reporters on whether the dismissal meant Putin had lost trust in Starovoit over the events in Kursk.

“A loss of trust is mentioned if there is a loss of trust. Such wording was not used [in the Kremlin decree],” Peskov replied.