Russian minister dies by suicide hours after getting fired by Putin, state media reports
Starovoit was dismissed by Putin on Monday morning. The decree announcing his dismissal was published on the official Kremlin website, with his deputy Andrey Nikitin appointed acting minister.
Asked by reporters for the reasons behind Starovoit's dismissal, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied this was due to a 'lack of trust,' but he did not give any alternative reason.
The Investigative Committee of Russia said in a statement that Starovoit's body was found inside a car with a gunshot wound. It said the circumstances of his death were being investigated but that the 'main theory is suicide.'
Before he became a minister, Starovoit was the governor of the southern Russian Kursk region. While he left the post before Ukraine's surprise incursion, he was partially blamed for security failures in the Russian region.
The dismissal came amid a multi-day disruption to air travel in Russia. Russian Federal Agency for Air Transport said 485 flights were cancelled, 88 were diverted and 1,900 were delayed.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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CNN
42 minutes ago
- CNN
Russian minister dies by suicide hours after getting fired by Putin, officials say
CNN — Former Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoit died by suicide on Monday, just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin fired him from the job, officials said. Starovoit was dismissed by Putin on Monday morning. The decree announcing his dismissal was published on the official Kremlin website, with his deputy Andrey Nikitin appointed acting minister. Asked by reporters for the reasons behind Starovoit's dismissal, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied this was due to a 'lack of trust,' but he did not give any alternative reason. The Investigative Committee of Russia said in a statement that Starovoit's body was found inside a car in Odintsovo, a suburb of Moscow. He was found with a gunshot wound, the committee said. It said the circumstances of his death were being investigated but the 'main theory is suicide.' Before he became a minister in May 2024, Starovoit was the governor of the southern Russian Kursk region. While he left the post before Ukraine's surprise incursion, he was partially blamed for security failures in the Russian region. Russian media reported on Monday that Starovoit has been implicated in an investigation into the embezzlement of state funds allocated for building fortifications in the region. Vesti, a state TV program, as well as RBC, a Russian independent business media outlet, and the Russian business daily newspaper Kommersant reported that he was being investigated. Kommersant said Starovoit was facing an arrest. Alexei Smirnov, Starovoit's predecessor in the Kursk governor role who was previously his deputy, was arrested in the same case in April this year, according to court in Moscow. The dismissal came amid a multi-day disruption to air travel in Russia. Russian Federal Agency for Air Transport said 485 flights were canceled, 88 were diverted and 1,900 were delayed over the weekend and into Monday. The agency said the cancellations were down to 'external interference,' without giving any specifics. But the Russian Defense Ministry said more than 400 Ukrainian long-range strikes were intercepted during the same period of time. The Ukrainian military said it also struck a chemical plant in Krasnozavodsk, north of Moscow early on Monday. It said the plant manufactures 'pyrotechnic devices and ammunition, including thermobaric warheads for Shahed-type' drones. Another deadly night in Ukraine At least 12 civilians were killed and more than 90 injured in Russian attacks across Ukraine in the 24 hours to mid-morning on Monday, according to Ukrainian authorities. At least 29 people, including three children aged 3, 7 and 11, were injured when Russian drones hit a residential building, a kindergarten and a commercial area at 6 a.m. local time Monday (11 p.m. ET on Sunday) in Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine. At least 17 more people, including a teenage boy, were injured when the same city was struck with drones again just five hours later, according to Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov. The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia fired four surface-to-air missiles and 101 Shahed-type drones at Ukraine in the past 24 hours, adding that it downed 75 of the drones either by shooting them down or by jamming. The Land Forces of Ukraine said on Monday that two of its recruitment offices were hit by Russian drones on Monday, the latest in a string of similar incidents. Six draft offices across the country have been attacked by Russian drones in just over a week, the Land Forces said in a statement, adding that they believed Russia was attacking the offices in an attempt to disrupt the Ukrainian military's enlistment process. At least two people have been killed and more than a dozen injured in these attacks, the statement said. Editor's Note: Help is available if you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters. In the United States, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide also can provide contact information for crisis centers around the world.
Forbes
44 minutes ago
- Forbes
North Korea's Growing Role In Ukraine War Shows How Weak Russia Is
TOPSHOT - This pool image distributed by Sputnik agency shows Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) ... More and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (L) shaking hands during their meeting at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Amur region on September 13, 2023, ahead of planned talks that could lead to a weapons deal with Russian President. (Photo by Vladimir SMIRNOV / POOL / AFP) (Photo by VLADIMIR SMIRNOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) It was reported last week that North Korea plans to triple the number of troops fighting with Russia along the front lines in Ukraine—sending an additional 25,000-30,000 troops. Troops will arrive in the next few months, adding to the 11,000 North Korean troops that were sent in November. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters in June that Russia is amassing 50,000 troops along the Russian border, in the Northeastern part of Ukraine, warning that Russia could deploy North Korean soldiers in parts of Russian-occupied Ukraine for a new ground offensive this summer. North Korea has the capacity to send up to 150,000 additional troops, requiring Russian aircraft to be refitted to transport such large numbers of foreign troops across Siberia. Without question North Korea's involvement in the conflict has become increasingly visible. For the first time, North Korean state media showed footage of North Korean troops fighting in Ukraine and acknowledged that thousands had already died. For North Korea, the deployment of troops is part of a long-term investment with Russia to revive the level of aid received to Cold War levels. Pyongyang has already received food and financial assistance and now seeks support in improving critical ground, air, air defence, and naval systems. With this new influx of North Korean troops, Moscow and Pyongyang have solidified their evolving partnership—building a relationship that is not just transactional but strategic as well. North Korean support was initially just rhetorical and diplomatic, with North Korea one of only a handful United Nations member states that recognised the sovereignty of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics in eastern Ukraine in 2022. Two high profile summits have taken place since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In September of 2023 Presidents Kim Jong Un and Vladmir Putin met in Russia's Vostochny Cosmodrome—a Russian spaceport. Then in June of 2024 Putin made a rare visit to North Korea, resulting in the signing of the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership--- which provided mutual defence if either country was attacked, constituting the strongest such agreement between the two nations since the Cold War. For Russia, the benefits of this partnership are obvious. Russia badly needs more troops. In 2024, it was losing over 1000 Russian troops a day—and about 100 soldiers died per square kilometre gained (Russia controls about 19% of Ukraine which is equivalent to a territory the size of Ohio). That same year Russia was also struggling to repel Ukraine's military incursion into Kursk, with some 15 battalions lost in Kursk alone. In total, Russia has suffered more than 790,000 casualties, almost twice as many as Ukraine. Given these losses, Putin is unable to risk another politically unpopular mobilization effort. Using non-Russian fighters buys Putin time to reconstitute his military, which Putin had pledged in 2024 to increase to 180,000 troops and 1.5 million active-duty military personnel. Though Putin had been recruiting from Somalia, Sierra Leone, Cuba and Nepal, the partnership with North Korea offered more advantages, and a much larger stream of troop deployment. But North Korea's deployment has also come with complications. Though North Korea sent over special forces units that are better trained and supplied than ordinary infantry, the initial deployment lacked an effective and agile command structure. As the complicated chain of command is in place to prevent military coups this created bottlenecks preventing quick decision-making. A political commissar and a representative of the police must sign off on every military decision, undermining rapid response. There were also some issues with the language barriers (very few Russian speaking North Koreans, and fewer Korean speaking Russians). As this was also North Korea's first participation in a major armed conflict since the Korean War, North Korean soldiers were struggling to adapt to modern warfare. They lacked not just modern combat experience, but also knowledge of the terrain. Initially the North Koreans were also easy targets for drone and artillery attacks. Due to their high level of discipline, they moved in unison in open fields where they could be easily spotted by drones and were less likely to scatter and hide when hearing the loud drones overhead. At night they also wrapped themselves in ponchos that made them visible from afar. They were also more willing to risk their lives to retrieve the bodies of colleagues in the fields, driving up the number of casualties. Within months North Korea suffered heavy losses, incurring around 4,000 casualties—or almost a third of those deployed. There were so many losses, that North Koreans were forced to withdraw from the frontlines in January of 2025. But even though Russians treated the North Koreans like cannon fodder, this did little to deter Kim—who agreed to send in another 3,000 troops in March of this year. And since then, the North Koreans have gained crucial battlefield experience and understanding of how to engage in electronic warfare. North Korea is not just providing troops but also needed military weapons. As Russia has lost a large amount of military hardware (almost 13,000 tanks and armoured vehicles have been destroyed and over 300 aircraft), Russia is in need of supplies. Some of the weapons that North Korea has provided include 200 long-range artillery systems, over a hundred short-range ballistic missiles such as KN-23 and KN-24 missiles, fifty 240mm multiple rocket launcher systems, and twenty 170mm self-propelled guns or howitzers. The KN-23 missiles are armed with warheads up to one tonne making them more powerful than Russian equivalent missiles. Additionally, since September of 2023, North Korea has shipped over 15,000 containers which likely contained billions of weapons including up to nine million artillery shells, helping Russia replenish its supply of 122 mm and 152 mm artillery shells. Ukraine believed that North Korea's contribution accounted for as much as 70% of Russian munitions used. As Russia's war with Ukraine relies heavily on artillery, this injection from North Korea has helped. But some of the North Korean munitions have been unreliable, inaccurate and old. The first batch of North Korea's KN-23 ballistic missiles were too inaccurate. They only improved after intensive collaboration of Russian and North Korean specialists. And North Korea can't match the scale or efficiency of Western arms manufacturers. Thus, North Korea's weapons support may not be sustainable in the long term; it is mostly a stopgap measure to help Russia regroup. Though North Korea's military faces operational shortcomings, Kim's willingness to risk a large number of lives and supply a huge arsenal of weapons provides Moscow with a critical buffer. It also demonstrates that Russia isn't capable of winning this war on its own.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
What everyone gets right — and wrong — about nuclear weapons
Regarding the June 22 front-page article 'U.S. strikes Iranian nuclear facilities': National leaders on both sides of the aisle seem to agree it is self-evident that Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. They remind us of the 'death to Americans' calls heard during the hostage crisis following the fall of the shah of Iran in 1979. I question whether that hatred is widely and strongly felt by Iranians today. And let's assume that Iran gets nuclear weapons, as the Russians have had for three-quarters of a century. Would they really hate us enough to use them on U.S. territory or forces, earning massive nuclear retaliation? The Russians haven't. The North Koreans haven't. The Chinese haven't. Pakistan and India have refrained from mutual nuclear slaughter. No, mutually assured destruction is still maintaining some sanity around the world and moderating conventional conflicts. (What if Ukraine had not given up its nuclear arsenal?)
