Anton Astakhov, the son of former Russian children's ombudsman Pavel Astakhov, has been placed in Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center on charges of fraud on an especially large scale (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code), according to Kommersant.
Investigators allege that Astakhov, along with other defendants, embezzled money from a bank in which he was a shareholder in 2019–2020 by issuing knowingly unrecoverable loans to fictitious companies. After the financial institution went bankrupt, claims were brought against former executives and shareholders.
Astakhov is also a defendant in a criminal case involving official forgery (Article 292 of the Criminal Code), linked to the illegal awarding of military personnel. His defense maintains that he is a witness in that case.
In April, Astakhov was summoned to the military investigative department of the Investigative Committee in Kursk as a witness, but was detained and handed over to investigators from the Main Investigative Directorate of the Russian Interior Ministry's Moscow branch. The Tverskoy District Court extended his detention until mid-September, and the Moscow City Court upheld that decision. Astakhov insists on his innocence and, according to his lawyer, wants to return to the war.
In November 2022, a court in Saratov sentenced Anton Astakhov to three and a half years in a general-regime penal colony for fraud. According to the prosecution, he and a partner took control of a company, fraudulently obtained a loan from NVKbank in its name, and moved more than 3 billion rubles through the company's accounts.
In August 2023, Astakhov signed a contract with the Defense Ministry and went to fight in Ukraine. He began his service as a stormtrooper, then became an officer, and suffered a concussion and a slight wound. In 2024, Vladimir Putin awarded him the Medal of Suvorov; Astakhov also received the 'Defender of the Kursk Region' medal and an award from the Akhmat special forces.