Former Russian minister convicted in UK for violating British sanctions

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/04/2025 (355 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LONDON (AP) — A former Russian government minister became the first person Wednesday to be convicted in the U.K. of circumventing sanctions put in place after the illegal annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Dmitrii Ovsiannikov, who was appointed governor of Sevastopol in Crimea by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2016, used a British bank account to illegally receive tens of thousands of pounds from his wife and accepted gifts and payments from his brother, prosecutors said.

Ovsiannikov, who also served as deputy minister for industry and trade, was an important political figure placed under European Union sanctions in 2017 for work that threatened the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, prosecutors said. The sanctions were adopted in the U.K. in 2019 as it left the E.U.

“He knew he had been on the U.K. sanctions list since 2017 but chose to ignore this,” said Julius Capon of the Crown Prosecution Service. “Another member of his family sought deliberately to breach the sanctions to live their own lavish lifestyle and showed complete disregard for the law.”

Ovsiannikov, 48, was convicted in Southwark Crown Court of six out of seven counts of circumventing sanctions between February 2023 and January 2024. The jury couldn’t reach a verdict on the final count.

He was also convicted of possessing and using criminal property.

His brother, Alexei Owsjanikow, 47, was convicted Wednesday of two counts of circumventing sanctions for paying school tuition for Ovsiannikov’s children. He was found not guilty of three additional counts of breaching sanctions for buying his brother a Mercedes-Benz worth 54,500 pounds ($70,000) and giving him access to a bank account.

Ekaterina Ovsiannikova, 47, was cleared of four counts of circumventing sanctions for allegedly funneling 76,000 pounds ($97,000) to her husband.

Lawyers had argued the brother and wife didn’t know Ovsiannikov faced sanctions or were unaware he couldn’t receive financial assistance.

All three are Russian nationals, though Ovsiannikov and his brother have British passports because their father was born in England.

The CPS said the case was the first prosecution for breaching sanctions put in place by the U.K. in 2019.

“Mr. Ovsiannikov thought he could hide from our sanctions,” Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said in a statement. “We are resolutely committed to increasing pressure on Putin, his cronies, and all those who aid his barbaric war in Ukraine.”

Ovsiannikov and his brother will be sentenced at a later date.