Germany investigates Siemens employees' involvement in Crimean sanctions violations

The investigators of the Hamburg Prosecutor's Office want to hold employees of the Siemens concern accountable for knowingly supplying gas turbines to Crimea despite the embargo after the peninsula's annexation by Russia in 2014.

Source: Ukrinform, citing Wirtschaftswoche

Details: The prosecutor's office has brought charges against five individuals involved in the illegal supply of Siemens gas turbines to Crimea in 2017, including a current Siemens employee. 

Overall, four Germans and one Swiss national facilitated the sale of four gas turbines to a Russian state-owned company, knowing that they would ultimately end up in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, thus violating the embargo. 

The prosecutor's office said that turbines worth €111 million were shipped to St Petersburg through the port of Hamburg from November 2015 to January 2016. Instead of installing them in southern Russia as agreed, Siemens' Russian client installed them at two new power stations in Sevastopol and Simferopol, providing energy to occupied Crimea. The suspects knew exactly where the turbines were intended to be used.

The Siemens Gas Turbine Technologies department, a joint venture with Russian Power Machines, was transferred to Siemens Energy during the division of Siemens in 2020 and sold at the end of 2022 after the full-scale invasion.

Siemens and Siemens Energy have responded that they consider themselves victims of their Russian client, Technopromexport, a Russian engineering company, but are cooperating with investigators. Meanwhile, the five accused individuals deny the charges.

Background: Earlier, it was reported that the Russian structure of Siemens AG LLC Systems (formerly LLC Siemens) planned to initiate the voluntary liquidation procedure in February 2024.

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