Former Putin-appointed governor on trial for breaching UK sanctions

A man who President Vladimir Putin appointed as the Governor of Sevastopol after Crimea was illegally annexed by Russia has gone on trial accused of breaching UK financial sanctions against him.

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

Between them, the three defendants face ten charges of breaching the sanctions, and two charges of money laundering. They deny all the charges.

Dmitrii held a senior position in Crimea for three years and the court heard he was also Russia’s Deputy Minister for Industry and Trade.

Two years after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, President Vladimir Putin appointed Dmitrii 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 Mr Ovsiannikov won.

Paul Jarvis, for the prosecution, said he “was an important political figure within the Russian Federation” though Dmitrii Ovsiannikov later resigned from the position in July 2019.

As a result of his senior job in illegally-annexed Crimea, the EU imposed financial sanctions on Mr Ovsiannikov saying that among other things he had “called for Sevastopol to become the southern capital of the Russian Federation.”

When the UK left the EU, the UK imposed financial sanctions on him too. He later challenged the EU sanctions and had them lifted, but the UK sanctions still apply.

They are called the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. The regulations make it a criminal offence to try to get round the sanctions.

The trial is the first criminal case involving the breach of the Russia Regulations.

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

Despite the fact that the 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.

Mr Jarvis said: “The father of Dmitrii and Alexei had been born in Bradford, United Kingdom, in 1950. Their mother was Russian. Dmitrii and Alexei hold British passports by virtue of their father being a British citizen.”

Dmitrii Ovsiannikov then arrived in Britain on 1 February 2023, moving into his brother’s house in Clapham, where his wife and two younger children were already living and attending private school.

On 6 February, Dmitrii Ovsiannikov applied for a Halifax bank account, saying on the form that he was single, but also saying that he was living in Clapham with his wife.

Over the next two and a half weeks Ekaterina Ovsiannikova transferred £76,000 into her husband’s 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.

After this, he went back to the dealership and recovered his deposit. His brother Alexei Owsjanikow bought the car instead, paying more than £54,000 the prosecution said.

The prosecution say that when Mr Ovsiannikov’s wife sent him the £76,000 and his brother bought the car they were in breach of the Russia Regulations.

Mr Jarvis told the jury that “they maintain that they either did not know that Dmitrii was a designated person or they did not realise that as a designated person he was not permitted to receive that type of help”.

He also added that Dmitrii 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.

Speaking to the jury, Mr Jarvis said that this showed that Mr Ovsiannikov was aware of the sanctions “and he must have made his nearest and dearest aware of that too”.

In January 2024 all three defendants were arrested and interviewed by police.

Four months later, Alexei Owsjanikow paid more than £40,000 in school fees for his brother’s two youngest children who were at the Royal Russell School in Croydon – also a breach of the sanctions.

Paul Jarvis told the jury that in a police interview Alexei accepted that he had paid the school fees, but he maintained that the payments did not amount to a breach of the Russian Regulations because he believed that Ekaterina was solely responsible for those fees and not Dmitrii.

The trial is expected to continue at Southwark Crown Court for three weeks.