What lies behind the mysterious deaths of the Russian elite?

MoscowThe recent Death of Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoit, who apparently shot himself just hours after Vladimir Putin dismissed him, has rekindled the debate about the deaths in strange circumstances of high-ranking officials and executives linked to the regimeSince the start of the war, more than fifty rich or powerful people have committed suicide, have suffered accidents or had heart attacks despite being healthy. The opacity of the system and a long tradition of suspicious deaths causing citizens to look askance at the Kremlin every time one occurs.

According to anti-corruption expert Ilya Xumanov, the Starovoit case, which is being prosecuted for corruption, presents "striking similarities" with the string of deaths of senior executives at Russian oil and gas companies in recent years. The main one is the lack of convincing explanations from the authorities. In an article in the daily Medusa, the journalist recalls that the former minister had made a career under the protection of the Rotenberg brothers, two oligarchs very close to Putin. Therefore, he sees it as "plausible" that, once arrested for fraud and embezzlement in the construction of fortifications in the Kursk region, where he had been governor, he could have pointed the finger at them. "This level of risk could have been sufficient to justify a murder staged as a suicide," concludes Xumanov.

Even analysts close to the Russian government doubt the official version. Sergei Markov also believes that "those against whom he could have testified after his arrest" are trying to cover up his murder. Whatever the real cause of death, experts detect evidence that the regime is pushing its elite to the limit. "It is a clear sign that the highest-ranking figures are unable to withstand the pressure of the system and the lack of a way out, except death," writes economist Aleksandra Prokopenko in the Financial Times.

Since February 2022, other officials have died suddenly while under the shadow of corruption. For example, in 2023, Marina Yankina, head of finance at the Ministry of Defense, jumped out of her house after war bloggers questioned the exorbitant prices of new military uniforms. Or in 2024 in Krasnoyarsk, Alexander Lapin, a former senior official in the regional government, fell from a seventh floor while being interrogated by police.

One of the most surreal sequences of deaths is that which affected the executives of the oil company Lukoil, Russia's second-largest. Unlike the vast majority of companies, its board of directors issued a statement in March 2022 expressing "concern" about the war in Ukraine. Two months later, former director Aleksander Subbotin was found dead in the basement of a shaman's house; in September of the same year, President Ravil Maganov fell from a hospital window; in October 2023, his replacement, Vladimir Nekrasov, suffered heart failure; and a month later, a senator with close ties to Lukoil, Vladimir Lebedev, also suffered a heart attack.

Against the conspiracy theory

Most analysts rule out the possibility that this string of deaths, often unexplained, is part of a hidden Kremlin agenda. However, The war has caused very abrupt changes in the economy that may have contributed to this phenomenon. At the time, Peter Rutland, a British professor who is an expert on Russia, raised the question of the American digital Vox that sanctions, asset freezes, and falling stock values could have pushed businesspeople into unbearable stress.

Another hypothesis, put forward by economist Stanislav Markus, is that restrictions on the economy and new opportunities for corruption have unleashed fiercer fighting between clans vying for contracts with the government, particularly in the energy and defense sectors. This, in turn, would have led to more operations to eliminate competitors and more unexplained deaths.

Faced with this scenario of suspicion and confusion, the only certainty is the fear that is taking hold of the political and business elite. This week, one date is being repeated in the Russian press: 1937, the year in which repression became so unbearable that one of Stalin's ministers, Sergo Ordjonikidze, committed suicide after daring to contradict the leader. Journalist Aleksander Baunov recalls how, in February 2022, officials' fear of "being physically liquidated for uttering the wrong word" became a reality. Now, the complete lack of answers following Starovoit's death only fuels the anguish of a privileged sector, captive to a merciless system, who will likely interpret this tragedy as a warning to sailors.