A former Russian government minister has become the first person to be convicted and sentenced in the United Kingdom for breaching sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Dmitrii Ovsiannikov, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin and former mayor of Sevastopol, was sentenced on Friday to 40 months in prison by Southwark Crown Court after being found guilty earlier this week on six counts of evading UK sanctions. The breaches occurred between February 2023 and January 2024.
Judge Sara Cockerill, delivering the sentence, said Ovsiannikov would serve up to half of the term in custody before being released on licence.
The 48-year-old’s offences included opening a UK bank account, receiving nearly £80,000 from his wife, and accepting a car from his brother, all in violation of financial restrictions. The bank later froze his account upon realising his sanctioned status.
Ovsiannikov’s conviction is the first under the UK’s Russian sanctions regime, which has been in place since 2019. Though the European Union removed its sanctions on him in February 2023, the UK maintained its own measures following Brexit. These include a ban on travel and access to funds within the country.
Ovsiannikov served as Russia’s deputy minister for industry and trade before being appointed mayor of Sevastopol by Putin in 2016, two years after Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.
Despite being under sanctions, Ovsiannikov was granted a British passport in 2022 due to his father’s UK birthplace. He travelled from Russia to Turkey that August and entered the UK in February 2023 to join his wife and two children already residing there.
His brother, Alexei Owsjanikow, 47, was also convicted of two counts of enabling the sanctions breach, having paid over £40,000 in school fees for Ovsiannikov’s children. However, he was acquitted on three other charges related to arranging car insurance and purchasing a Mercedes-Benz.
Ovsiannikov’s wife, Ekaterina Ovsiannikova, 47, was cleared of all charges.
The maximum sentence for breaching Russian sanctions under UK law is seven years’ imprisonment.
