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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
As part of operation “Forrest Gump,” recordings were released about a 150 million UAH bail for former minister Herman Halushchenko. On the recordings one of the figures is “Vasya.” According to Ukrayinska Pravda, this is businessman Vasyl Astion.
The SAP explicitly named his role in the organized group: “responsible for the judicial support of all decisions, so that courts would adopt them in the interests of the group’s participants.” Not a “cashier,” as Telegram wrote, but the judicial overseer of the Stolar-Mykytas crew.
What none of the published investigations has mentioned so far:
Vasyl Astion and his brother Yevhen, through the NVKIF Genesis Capital, each own 9,99% of JSC Bank "Ukrainian Capital." Together — 19,98% of the bank.
These are the official NBU data as of 31 January 2020:
The Astions are recorded as two packages of 9,99% each, not one of 19,98%. By law “significant participation” starts at 10%. Two brothers at 9,99% each — formally neither is a “significant” participant. The NBU has no grounds to require approval. This is a classic circumvention of threshold regulation.
And a separate anomaly: the current ownership structure of the bank has not been publicly updated since 31.01.2020. On the NBU supervision page today’s ultimate owners of significant participation are listed as Bielashov, Bielashova, Zlydar, Kiva. The Astions are no longer there. But there is no official structure file in the NBU archive.
Where did the 19,98% of the bank go? Who was it sold to? In the Astions’ NAPK declarations for 2020–2023 the sale is not recorded.
Interestingly, at the end of 2023 the NBU revoked all licenses of LLC FC Fingroup Factor (100% owned by the Astions). The reason — “refusal to allow an inspection.” Then the SBU Economic Protection Department and the Office of the Prosecutor General announced tax evasion charges against Vasyl Astion for 61,4 million UAH. Judge Saidullaiev (Zhovtnevyi District Court of Dnipro) reduced the bail by 61 times: from 61,4 to 1 million UAH.
In February 2024 the AMCU allowed the Astions, through Fingroup, to buy DK Kaskad and Inter Way Capital from Khomutynnik. Astion’s own case was closed in March 2025 “due to expiry of terms.”
August 2026 — NABU tapes. Astion — the judicial overseer of the Stolar crew.
Between 29.12.2023 and 09.01.2024 — only 11 days. One state body takes a license from a finance company. Another declares suspicion of the beneficiary in 11 days. A third reduces the bail by 61 times in 3 days. A fourth allows them to buy new assets in 30 days. And all this time the brothers still hold 19,98% of a bank with an NBU license, whose current ownership structure the public registry has not published for six years. Questions the NBU must answer:
"Sense Bank," through which 150 million UAH were officially legalized, submitted more than 589 summarized reports to the State Financial Monitoring Service from 2025 through May 2026. Therefore Sense top managers — Hladyshchenko, Stupak, Snihur — were included among the figures of “Forrest Gump.” And "Ukrainian Capital" — the bank almost one-fifth owned by the Astions and about which the public registry is silent — has not even been mentioned yet.
What Astion himself said to Ekonomichna Pravda on 12 June: "I am not acquainted with Halushchenko, with his lawyers, and no one contacted me with an offer to help post bail." Two months later — his voice on the NABU tapes and the role of “judicial overseer” in the High Anti-Corruption Court ruling.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Астіон і 19,98% «Українського Капіталу»: куди поділися частки бізнесмена та його брата". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Rozsliduvach.
