A macabre list that continues to bed. The Russian Transport Minister, the Starvoït novel, was found dead in his car, injured by Bullet, announced on Monday, July 7, the Russian Research Committee. According to this Kremlin research agency, “the main thesis is that of suicide.”
Moscow said he was “shocked.” “An investigation is being carried out and it is precisely this investigation that is supposed to answer all the questions,” said the spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, according to the state agency TASS.
“It’s strange because there was very little state information about this death, it was quickly spent,” says Carole Grimaud, a specialist in Russia and Geopolitical Master at the University of Montpellier, contacted by BFMTV.com.
Roman Starvoït, 53, had been withdrawn from his duties on the day of his suicide by a decree signed by Vladimir Putin, without giving public explanations. In the process, his replacement and his former deputy, Andrei Nikitine, was appointed. “This is the decision of the Head of State,” said the spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, during his press point.
“The decree does not contain the expression ‘loss of confidence’,” he added, sweeping the question of a journalist who asked him if Roman Starvoït’s dismissal was linked to a misfortune of the minister.
“This refers to the Stalinist period”
His dismissal intervened when Russian airports are subject to repeated temporary closures due to Ukrainian drone attacks. But according to the Russian media, Roman Starvoït was also attacked by an investigation for corruption in the Koursk region, which ruled between 2019 and 2024. Ukraine invaded this Russian region in August 2024, a few months after its departure, in reaction to the Russian offensive.
“If this minister committed suicide, it is because he feared a violent death or ending in prison. The system hardens. This refers to the Stalinist period in which people preferred to commit suicide instead of being arrested,” he underlines Carole Grimaud, also a researcher in information science of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of bas. Students in the Russian war in Ukraine (Ed. Harmattan).
On Monday, the death of another representative of the Ministry of Transportation was announced: that of the Deputy Chief of the Land Funds Department, Andrei Korneichuk, who died of a cardiac arrest, reports the television Tsargra Pro-Kremlin.
If the “suspicious deaths” are not new in Russia, the “proportion is very great” since the beginning of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, he points out to the specialist. Many senior Russian and oligarchy officials have died in circumstances considered concerned about Russian media and foreign observers. Bullet suicides, drowning, poisoning, defenestation … The causes of deaths are multiple and recurring.
“They were not part of the first Putin circle”
“Today, there is a concern in political elites,” said Carole Grimaud.
According to the Russian channel, Tsargrad cited previously, “20 officials have died” since 2022 in “circumstances” that “raise disturbing questions.” Like the former director of the External Intelligence Service, Vyacheslav Trubnikov, April 18, 2022. Or Pavel Antov, one of the richest deputies of the United Party of Russia of Vladimir Putin and founder of an important charceríss factory. The latter was found dead in December 2022 in India after falling from the terrace of a hotel where he spent his vacation.
The list is long: the general director of the aeronautical industry for the company for the development of the Far East and the Arctic (KRDV), Ivan Pechorin, drowns; The head of the Finance Department of the Russian Department of Defense, Marina Yankina, fell from a balcony; The Secretary of State and Vice President of Science and Higher Education, Piotr Kucherenko, died aboard an plane returning from Cuba … The Russian chain Tsargrada dates from the last suspicious death of a politician, local, last April.
If some had criticized “the special operation” carried out in Ukraine by Vladimir Putin, the majority “were very loyal,” says Carole Grimaud, pointing out “very disparate portraits.”
However, these people had a common point in their eyes: “They were part of the elites, gravitated around the Kremlin but were not part of the first Putin circle.”
The army is not saved either. In November 2023, Lieutenant General Vladimir Sviridov, former commander of the sixth Russian Air and Air Force Army, was found dead in a house in southern Russia, according to the Russian news agency Ria Novosti. The circumstances of his death have not yet been established.
There is another more emblematic case in memories: that of Evgueni Prigojine, head of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner He died in an plane accident in August 2023. A few weeks after leading a riot against the Russian State Summit.
“Little is happening in Russia without Putin having something to do with that,” said the president of the United States, Joe Biden.
“The mortality rate among people close to Putin is particularly high (…) is a risky activity,” he had for his part Launched the French foreign minister of the era Catherine Colonna.
“It is crazy what you can be like open windows in Moscow”
In addition to the political world, the Russian energy sector is particularly disconsolate. On January 30, 2022, the general director of the important company Gazprom, Léonid Shulman, was found dead in the bathroom of his villa in the Leningrad region.
According to the Warsaw Institute, a group of Polish experts, the 30 -year -old businessman was involved in a corruption case. Following the Russian invasion in Ukraine, the company’s financial director, Alexander Tyulyakov, was found hung in his garage, near St. Petersburg.
The Russian oil group has also seen many of its main leaders disappear. In September 2022, CEO Ravil Maganov was found dead at the Kremlin hospital in Moscow. The explanations were worried.
First, the Interfax and Tass agencies mentioned “a fall in the sixth floor” of the hospital window, adding that it had committed suicide. As for the company, she wrote that Ravil Maganov, 67, had succumbed “of a serious illness,” Remember our RFI colleagues. His successor, Vladimir Nekrasov, also died in October 2023 of “acute heart failure” according to the Russian media.
In March 2024, the vice president of the Vitaly Robertus group was found hung in his office. According to Vanity Fair, The Board of Directors of the Group expressed in March 2022 “its concern against the tragic events in Progreso in Ukraine” and told itself “favorable to” a rapid cessation of the armed conflict. “
On July 4, the Vice President of Transneft, the powerful Russian Société D’Areodus, Andrei Badalov, died when he fell from the window of his house in Moscow. At least seven entrepreneurs died in Russia by “falling from a window” since 2022, reports the Ukrainian newspaper, The independent kyiv.
“It is crazy that there may be open windows in Moscow, even in February,” said Liberation Dov Alfon director in September 20222 In the chronicle in all the subjectivity of France Inter.
Several businessmen were found dead with their family. Like Vladislav Avayev, the former vice president of Gazprombank, the Russian gas bank. The one who was close to Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin was found dead in April 2022 in his Moscow apartment, a firearm in his hand, his wife, pregnant and her daughter, killed by her side.
The next day, it was Sergey Protosenya, the former Novatek official, the second Russian gas producer, who was found hung in the garden of his villa in Lloret de Mar in Spain. The police also found the bodies lardados with wounds of a knife by his wife and daughter.
“The reasons are nebulous”
The suspicious deaths of the oligarchs are more for Carole Grimaud to “establish scores” in a context in which the war in Ukraine “completely rebuilt the economic elite.”
The energy sector in Russia “remains a relatively mafia environment”, reminded us In 2022 Ulrich BounatGeopolitical analyst and researcher associated with Think Thank Euro Créiv. Keep in mind that large energy companies are in the hands of the State.
In more general terms, beyond the oligarchs, if the sponsored murder, “the reasons are nebulous,” he tells the teacher in geopolitics. “The KGB brand does not necessarily exist, it is not necessarily the Kremlin that ordered all these dead,” but if these people were attacked “they represented a threat to someone,” he summarizes.
Source: BFM TV
