Holland sends Russian man to prison for violating EU sanctions

A Russian national was given an 18-month prison sentence and his company was fined 200,000 euros ($211,000) by a Dutch court for violating trade sanctions against Russia that the European Union imposed due to the conflict in Ukraine. Prosecutors named the 56-year-old man Dmitri K. He was tried absentee, and it is thought that he fled to Russia after being freed from detention last year while his trial was ongoing. In a rare decision, the court found that the man was fully aware of the sanctions against Russia and had been dealing in microchips and other electronic goods for six years. The man oversaw a business that, in order to get around EU regulations, supplied “dual-use” products—items that can be used for both military and civilian purposes—to businesses in Russia through other nations. In order to accomplish this, the man falsified statements about the products’ final user and invoices, making it appear as though the goods were shipped to the Maldives or, in certain cases, an imaginary company in Ukraine, according to the district court in Rotterdam. “With his acts he has knowingly and deliberately circumvented European Union sanctions and undermined national and international law,” the court said. “Since the sanctions were imposed, avoiding them basically became his business model.” The Netherlands is one of the 27 member states of the European Union, which has imposed 11 rounds of sanctions on Russia since Moscow began its massive invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Trade, defence, and financial restrictions are among them, along with a blacklist of about 1,800 individuals and organisations implicated in the conflict that Russia waged against its neighbour, a former Soviet republic that is now seeking to join the West. (With agency inputs)