An ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been arrested in London over money laundering charges.
Dmitry Ovsyannikov, the former mayor of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea, was arrested by the National Crime Agency at his home last week on suspicion of sanctions breaches.
He has been charged with seven counts of circumventing sanctions and two of money laundering and will appear before Southwark Crown Court on February 20.
Mr Ovsyannikov is the first person to be charged in Britain with breaching Russian sanctions.
He was sanctioned by Britain in 2020 and the European Union in 2017 after making public statements in support of the invasion of Crimea.
Mr Ovsyannikov is accused of deliberately avoiding sanctions by opening a HBOS bank account in the City of London on or before February last year. He is also accused of allowing four payments totalling £65,000 to be deposited in the account and of possessing £77,517 of "criminal cash".
Mr Ovsyannikov is Russia’s former deputy minister of industry and trade and governed Sevastopol from 2017 to 2019.
He had previously worked in Russia's ministry of industry and trade and resumed that role in 2019, becoming deputy minister. He was sacked from the ministerial post in 2020.
In October 2022 the European Court of Justice accepted an appeal by Mr Ovsyannikov and annulled the EU's decision to extend sanctions against him as he no longer held the position for which he was sanctioned.
As a result, he was left free to travel in western Europe although similar sanctions imposed on him by Britain in 2017 remained in force.
