Moscow on Thursday has confirmed the detention in Italy of the son of a senior Russian official at Washington’s request for alleged sanctions evasion and illegal sale of US technologies to Russian arms companies.
Russia’s embassy in Italy took it to Facebook added that, “Russian citizen (Artyom) Uss was arrested on October 17 in Milan Malpensa Airport at the request of the United States.”
The father of Uss is Alexander Uss, the governor of the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk.
The US Justice Department on Wednesday has made an announcement about charges against a dozen individuals, including five Russians, for “unlawful schemes to export powerful, civil-military, dual-use technologies to Russia.”
It added that some of these had “been discovered on battlefields in Ukraine, while another nuclear proliferation technology was intercepted before reaching Russian soil.”
The Justice Department also said five Russian nationals and two Venezuelan oil broker had been charged with “participation in global sanctions evasion and money laundering schemes.”
One of them was detained on October 17 in Germany while another in Italy, both at the request of US authorities.
Uss was accused of having purchased electronic components from the US intended to equip planes, radars and missiles, and having resold them to Russian arms companies by circumventing sanctions.
The authorities in the United States also believe the network “smuggled millions of barrels of oil & laundered tens of millions of dollars” to sanctioned entities, the US Department of Justice’s said.
Uss’s father condemned the arrests as political.
Alexander Uss said on Telegram, “The political colouring of these accusations is obvious.”
The detention comes as Russia and Washington are in talks on a potential prisoner exchange, that could include US basketball player Brittney Griner, sentenced to nine years in jail in Russia for drug trafficking.
