In first such case, Russia's ex-proxy in Crimea convicted of breaching UK sanctions
Dmitry Ovsiannikov, formerly a Russian-installed head of occupied Sevastopol in Crimea, was found guilty on April 9 of violating British sanctions in the first such ruling.
A London court found the 48-year-old guilty of circumventing sanctions between February 2023 and January 2024 on six out of seven counts.
Ovsiannikov has been accused of opening a Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) account on or before February 2023 and having his wife, Ekaterina Ovsiannikova, transfer tens of thousands of pounds to it.
His brother, Alexei Owsjanikow, was convicted of two counts of sanctions breach.
Ovsiannikov was appointed as chief of the occupation administration in Sevastopol in 2017, the same year he was placed on the U.K. and EU sanctions lists. He held the post until 2019, when he resigned amid criticism of his work.
The Russian official, who also previously served as a deputy trade minister before being dismissed and expelled from the ruling United Russia party in 2020, moved to London in 2023 and acquired a British passport despite existing sanctions.
This marks the first prosecution case based on the U.K.'s Russian Regulations of 2019, the Guardian reported.
The U.K. imposed targeted sanctions on Russia in coordination with other partners in 2014 in response to Moscow's illegal annexation of Crimea, further tightening the sanctions regime after the outbreak of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Over 1,700 individuals and 380 entities are sanctioned under the U.K.'s Russia regime as of 2025.
Chris York
