Aleksandr Ivanovich Bastrykin is a Russian statesman and the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. He was born on August 27, 1953, in Pskov; in 1975 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of Leningrad State University, where he studied at the same time as Vladimir Putin. In 1980 he defended his candidate's dissertation, "Problems of Investigating Criminal Cases Involving Foreign Citizens," and in 1987 his doctoral dissertation, "The Interaction of Domestic and International Law in the Sphere of Soviet Criminal Procedure." From 1988 to 1991, Bastrykin headed the Leningrad Institute for the Advanced Training of Investigators under the USSR Prosecutor's Office and chaired the Department of Investigative Tactics; in 1992 he was appointed rector of the Saint Petersburg Law Institute.[2] From June 2007 he served as First Deputy Prosecutor General and head of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation; in January 2011 he was officially appointed chairman of the independent Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation.
He holds the ranks of State Counselor of Justice, 1st Class, and General of Justice of the Russian Federation. The rank of General of Justice of the Russian Federation, the highest provided for by the law on the Investigative Committee, was conferred on Bastrykin by President Putin in a decree of February 20, 2016; before that he held the rank of Colonel General of Justice.[2] He is an Honored Lawyer of Russia and has been awarded the Orders of Merit for the Fatherland, 3rd and 4th class, the Order of Alexander Nevsky, medals, and a presentation firearm. In October 2024, President Putin extended Bastrykin's term as head of the Investigative Committee until August 2025, and in August 2025 extended it by another year, until August 2026.[1][1][1][1][1] He is connected to the Nizhny Novgorod region through a number of high-profile cases that he took under his personal supervision or on which he issued direct instructions.
Instructions on Nizhny Novgorod Cases
In 2026, Bastrykin ordered an acceleration of the investigation into the criminal case concerning the improper maintenance of the building of the Suvorovo Rural House of Culture in Diveevo Okrug.
That same year, a repeat criminal case over the landslides in Novinki was opened after local residents appealed to Bastrykin through his reception office's VKontakte account. Landslide processes on the slope in Novinki have been observed for more than ten years; the first noticeable collapse of soil was recorded in 2014.
Bastrykin's father, Ivan Ilyich, was a native of Krasnodar Krai from a family of Kuban Cossacks, a participant in the Finnish War and the Great Patriotic War, and a naval officer; his mother, Evgenia Antonovna, a native of Luga, worked at a defense plant during the siege of Leningrad, and from 1943 served in units of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet and took part in the battles for Königsberg.[2]
As a student, Bastrykin was the group leader (starosta) at the Law Faculty of Leningrad State University; after graduating in 1975, he was assigned to the internal affairs bodies of Leningrad, where he worked as a criminal investigation inspector and then as an investigator.[2]
Sources
- TASS — The rank of Colonel General of Justice of the Russian Federation — the highest rank provided for by the law on the Investigative Committee — was conferred on Bastrykin by President Putin by decree of February 20
- Kommersant (Volga Region) — Aleksandr Ivanovich Bastrykin was born on August 27, 1953, in Pskov. In 1975, he graduated from the Law Faculty of Leningrad State University, where (archive)