US technology sales to Russia lead to a Kansas businessman’s conspiracy plea

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas businessman pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal criminal charges stemming from what prosecutors described as a conspiracy to illegally export aviation-related technology to Russia, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Cyril Gregory Buyanovsky pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiring to commit crimes against the U.S. and a single count of conspiring to illegally launder money internationally, court records show. His sentencing is set for March 21 and he could face up to 25 years in prison.

Prosecutors said Buyanovsky also agreed to allow the U.S. government to seize $450,000 in equipment and $50,000 in personal assets. The equipment was a pallet of aviation-related devices blocked from export the day before Buyanovsky was arrested in March along with business partner Douglas Edward Robertson.

Their arrests came as the U.S. ramped up sanctions and financial penalties on Russia since its invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Along with thousands of sanctions on people and companies, export controls were meant to limit Russia’s access to computer chips and other products needed to equip a modern military.

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A Washington attorney representing Buyanovsky, Aitan D. Goelman, declined comment when reached by phone following Tuesday’s hearing before U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree in Kansas City, Kansas.

Buyanovsky, 60, and Robertson, 56, operated the KanRus Trading Co. together. Prosecutors said the company supplied aircraft electronics to Russian companies and offered repair services for equipment used in Russian-manufactured aircraft.

Kate Brubacher, the U.S. attorney for Kansas, said in a statement that Buyanovsky and Robertson showed they “value greed and profit over freedom and justice.”

Buyanovsky is from Lawrence, Kansas, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Kansas City and home to the main University of Kansas campus. Robertson, the company’s vice president, is from the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, Kansas.

A federal grand jury indictment charged the two men with 26 criminal counts, including conspiracy, exporting controlled goods without a license, falsifying and failing to file electronic export information, and smuggling goods in violation of U.S. law. The indictment alleges that since 2020, the business partners conspired to evade U.S. export laws by concealing and misstating the true end users and destinations of their exports and by shipping equipment through third-party countries.

Robertson was scheduled to appear Wednesday morning before a different judge in Kansas City, Kansas, to enter a plea to the charges against him.

Prosecutors said he, Buyanovsky and other conspirators lied to U.S. suppliers; shipped goods through intermediary companies in Armenia, Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates; filed false export forms with the U.S. government; and used foreign bank accounts outside Russia to funnel money from Russian customers to KanRus in the U.S.

“Today’s guilty plea demonstrates the Justice Department’s commitment to cut off Moscow from the means to fuel its military and hold those enabling it accountable in a court of law,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Matthew Olsen said in a statement.