Former Putin-appointed governor guilty of breaching UK sanctions

A former Russian government minister - who was once a governor in illegally annexed Crimea - has been found guilty of breaching UK sanctions in the first case of its kind.

Dmitrii Ovsiannikov was accused of deliberately avoiding sanctions by receiving more than £75,000 from his wife Ekaterina Ovsiannikova and a new Mercedes Benz SUV from his brother Alexei Owsjanikow.

Ovsiannikov, who has a British passport, was found guilty of six out of seven counts of circumventing sanctions. The jury failed to reach a verdict on the final charge.

The case is the first prosecution in the UK regarding a breach of sanctions under the Russia Sanctions Regulations, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Two years after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, President Vladimir Putin appointed Ovsiannikov as acting governor of the "strategically significant" city of Sevastopol in Crimea, the jury were told.

In 2017, elections were held there for the position of governor and Ovsiannikov won. He resigned from the position in July 2019.

As a result of his senior job in illegally annexed Crimea, the EU and UK imposed financial sanctions on him.

In August 2022, Ovsiannikov travelled to Turkey from Russia and applied for a British passport.

Despite the fact that UK sanctions still applied, the jury heard that he was granted a passport in January 2023, which he was entitled to because his father was born in the UK.

Ovsiannikov challenged the EU sanctions and they were lifted just five days after he arrived in the UK.

After arriving in Britain on 1 February 2023, Ovsiannikov moved into his brother's house in Clapham, where his wife and two younger children were already living and attending private school.

On 6 February, the former governor applied for a Halifax bank account and over the next two-and-a-half weeks his wife transferred £76,000 into his account - allowing him to put down a deposit on a Mercedes Benz GLC 300 SUV.

However, the bank later realised he was on the UK sanctions list and froze the account. His brother Alexei Owsjanikow bought the Mercedes instead, paying more than £54,000, the prosecution said.

The prosecution argued that when Ovsiannikov's wife sent him the £76,000 and his brother bought the car they were also in breach of sanctions.

While in May 2024, Owsjanikow paid more than £40,000 in school fees for his brother's two youngest children - which the prosecution argued was also in breach of sanctions.

Ovsiannikov's wife was cleared of four counts of circumventing sanctions by assisting with payments totalling £76,000 to her husband in February 2023.

Owsjanikow was cleared of breaching sanctions by buying the Mercedes-Benz, arranging car insurance for Ovsiannikov, and by making a Barclays bank account available to him.

However the jury at Southwark Crown Court found Owsjanikow guilty on two counts of circumventing sanctions by paying school fees of £41,027 for his brother's children.

The prosecution argued Ovsiannikov must have known he was subject to UK sanctions, because on 7 February 2023 he was applying for them to be lifted and had included his unique ID number and group ID number from his sanctions listing on the form.

In a statement after the verdicts, Julius Capon, unit head prosecutor of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) , said: "The sanctions regime was introduced against key individuals to encourage Russia to cease military action because it was hoped those with power will be hampered in their normal international business dealings."

Mr Capon said he hoped the guilty verdicts would send "a clear message" that CPS and National Crime Agency (NCA) investigators would work closely to seek the convictions of "sanctions busters".

Graeme Biggar, director general of the NCA, said the agency's Combatting Kleptocracy Cell was responsible for "more than 180 disruptions to remove or reduce a criminal threat posed by Putin-linked elites and their enablers since the invasion of Ukraine."

Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said the UK is "committed to increasing pressure on Putin, his cronies, and all those who aid his barbaric war in Ukraine."

Ovsiannikov and Owsjanikow will be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court at a later date.