Just hours after being removed from office by President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s former transport minister Roman Starovoit has been found dead, with authorities suspecting he took his own life using a firearm.

Russia’s Investigative Committee confirmed the death on Monday, saying it was working to determine the circumstances surrounding the incident. “We are working to establish the circumstances of the incident,” it said in a brief statement.

Starovoit’s dismissal was announced earlier in the day without any explanation, and Deputy Transport Minister Andrei Nikitin was named as his replacement shortly afterward.

Starovoit had been appointed minister of transport in May 2024, following a nearly six-year stint as governor of the Kursk region.

His term as governor ended after Ukrainian forces briefly took control of parts of Kursk in a surprise offensive in August 2024.

While Russian troops eventually reclaimed most of the region, Kyiv claimed in late June that a small portion of Russian territory was still under its control.

The timeline of Starovoit’s death remains unclear. Andrei Kartapolov, head of the State Duma Defense Committee, told Russian media outlet RTVI that “his death occurred quite a while ago.”

Earlier on Monday, before news of the death surfaced, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked if the dismissal suggested Putin had lost confidence in Starovoit following the military setbacks 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 responded.

The late minister’s name had also been linked to a corruption case involving his short-term successor Aleksey Smirnov. Smirnov, who briefly held the transport post before being arrested in April, is accused of misappropriating funds intended for building defensive structures along the border with Ukraine.

According to Russian publication Kommersant, Starovoit was expected to be named a defendant in the same case.

Investigations into both the circumstances of Starovoit’s death and the alleged embezzlement continue.