Anton Astakhov is charged with using false documents on military service

The son of lawyer Pavel Astakhov, Anton, is charged with handing over to investigators forged documents from a military unit about an allegedly concluded contract for military service and illegal receipt of state awards.

MOSCOW, August 21 - RIA Novosti. The son of lawyer Pavel Astakhov, Anton, who is in a pre-trial detention center on charges of fraud, is charged with handing over to investigators forged documents from a military unit about an allegedly concluded contract for military service and illegal receipt of state awards, it follows from materials reviewed by RIA Novosti.

As the press service of the capital's courts of general jurisdiction reported, Anton Astakhov was sent to a pre-trial detention center in mid-April on charges of particularly large-scale fraud. The case concerns the theft of funds from one of the banks, of which Astakhov Jr. was a shareholder. His lawyer told RIA Novosti that the client has been a contract soldier since 2023, has been on the front line, has awards and wants to return to the special military operation zone.

“As follows from the charges brought, the commission of criminal acts is charged as part of an organized group. In addition, false documents were submitted to the investigative body regarding the conclusion of a contract for military service and a criminal case was opened against (the defendant) under Part 1 of Article 292 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation,” the materials say.

According to the materials, on August 12, 2024, Astakhov Jr. was charged with particularly large-scale fraud; on April 24, 2025, the investigation into the case was suspended based on a petition from the command of the military unit, but on November 24, 2025, the prosecutor’s office canceled the decision to suspend the investigation. The department established that on January 13, 2025, the defendant was excluded from the list of personnel of the military unit, while representatives of the unit did not confirm that they had signed the petition addressed to the investigative authorities, and the seal impressions on it did not correspond to the seals of the institution, and therefore the investigation concluded that the document was falsified.

“In addition, the military investigative department at this address is investigating a criminal case initiated on the grounds of a crime under Part 1 of Article 292 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation regarding the illegal reward of a serviceman with state awards of the Russian Federation,” the document notes.

The materials indicate that Astakhov Jr., as part of an organized group with three accomplices and unidentified bank employees, committed the theft of bank funds through deliberately non-repayable loans to fictitious organizations in the period from June 2019 to January 2020. It is clarified that the accused remains in custody until September 16.

In 2022, a court in Saratov sentenced Astakhov Jr. to 3.5 years in prison. It was established that in 2019, he and another defendant, whose case was separated into separate proceedings, deceived the director of the Omega company at a meeting in Moscow Apabank: they promised to help get a loan with the condition that he would give half of the amount to them, but in the end the victim, after receiving the loan, lost almost the entire amount. 74.5 million rubles were recovered from Anton Astakhov as compensation for damage to the victim.