The Anti-Corruption Foundation has released a new investigation into Mikhail Starshinov, a United Russia State Duma deputy who has represented Karachay-Cherkessia in parliament for the past 15 years and serves as First Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption.

Officially, Starshinov appears to be a fairly modest man: his most recent publicly available asset declaration lists a 42-square-meter apartment, several hundred thousand rubles in bank accounts, and no cars. However, we found that his family owns nearly 4 billion rubles’ worth of real estate.

Most of the property is registered to Irina Fomina, Starshinov’s longtime partner and the mother of his children, whom he has never declared as his spouse. In her name are a villa and an apartment on Lake Como, a commercial property in central Como, four apartments on Povarskaya Street in Moscow, as well as luxury real estate on Rublyovka. We estimate that the family’s new estate, currently under construction there, is worth around 2.5 billion rubles.

Starshinov also uses expensive cars registered to Fomina and other relatives. They include several Mercedes vehicles, including Maybachs, as well as a G-Class. The five cars we identified are worth around 60 million rubles in total.

Starshinov himself was born and lived in Moscow and had no ties to Karachay-Cherkessia before becoming its representative. He entered the State Duma from the region three times through the same scheme: the republic’s head, Rashid Temrezov, topped United Russia’s party list, then gave up his seat after the election, allowing it to pass to Starshinov. They are trying to repeat the same scheme again in the 2026 election.

Watch and read ACF’s new investigation into how a deputy representing one of Russia’s poorest regions amassed billions of rubles’ worth of real estate in Moscow, on Rublyovka, and on the shores of Lake Como.