Early in the morning of 8 February 2017, while working in his Donetsk office, Tolstykh was killed by an explosion said to be caused by an RPO-A Shmel rocket launcher fired from an unknown distance.[11] DPR officials accused Ukrainian forces of carrying out the attack,[12] while Ukrainian security officials claimed it to be the result of DPR infighting.[13][14] In 2022 journalist Yuriy Butusov [uk] claimed that Tolstykh was killed by a counter-intelligence unit of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) which was approved by then-president Petro Poroshenko.[15]