27 July 2025, Sunday, 0:29
Support
the website
Sim Sim,
Charter 97!
Categories

"The System Is Beginning To Devour Itself."

6
"The System Is Beginning To Devour Itself."

Minister Starovoit's suicide shocked Russian elites.

The Russian elite has been horrified by the alleged suicide of former Transport Minister and former Kursk Governor Roman Starovoit, who was found shot dead. Among high-ranking officials and businessmen, fear for their position and lives increased, and some of them perceived the act of the ex-transport minister as a "demarche" to the Kremlin. This Faridaily was told by high-ranking government sources and former officials.

The prison terms and other harsh measures of recent years have caused increased fear in the Russian elites, and the situation has become reminiscent of the purges among the nomenklatura in the era of Stalin's repressions, said an interlocutor close to the government who worked in high positions for many years.

"Practically life sentences, the murder of the creator of PMC Wagner Evgeny Prigozhin, Timur Ivanov (ex-deputy of Sergey Shoigu, who was sent to a colony for 13 years - TMT) ... make you think that if you are caught in these millstones, you will be ground to powder." The death of Starovoit, who was personally known to many in the Russian power system, reinforced this confidence, the source admitted.

Fears among Russian elites have been intensified by a wave of nationalizations that have already resulted in the state seizing $50 billion in assets. On Friday, a court in Chelyabinsk turned one of the country's largest gold mining companies, Yuzhuralzoloto, into state revenue, while its owner, billionaire Konstantin Strukov, was detained days earlier while trying to fly out of Russia, according to Kommersant.

Strukov found himself under pressure from the Kremlin, even though he has been "one of United Russia's main sponsors" for many years, political analyst Abbas Galliamov notes: "Thought this guaranteed him immunity. Dudki. At the moment when the system begins to devour itself, there are no untouchables."

In March, law enforcers also detained the founder of Russia's largest agricultural holding Rusagro, billionaire Vadim Moshkovich, who was accused of fraud and abuse of power, as well as receiving a particularly large bribe. Part of the holding has already been transferred to state ownership. He will remain in pre-trial detention until August 25.

Representatives of the Russian elite are caught in a "trap," Faridaily notes: officials cannot escape from "persecution" and live quietly abroad both because of Western sanctions and because of a de facto ban by the Kremlin. This ban works most strictly in the government.

The degree of tension in the Russian top brass after Starovoit's suicide is also evident in the fact that even officials who knew him closely are afraid to express sympathy publicly. "If you show softness, they will consider you a traitor," explained a former high-ranking official. "Strange as it may seem, Starovoit has shown a way out, which many will now consider possible," a source close to the government reasoned.

Write your comment 6

Follow Charter97.org social media accounts