A Russian who had escaped to Italy announces that he is back in Russia

The son of a Russian governor who disappeared last month in Italy after being arrested and placed under house arrest at the request of the United States announced on Tuesday that he had returned to Russia.

“I am in Russia! During those particularly tense days, I had strong and reliable people by my side. I want to thank themArtyom Uss, son of the governor of the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk Alexander Uss, told the Ria Novosti news agency.

Illegal sale case

Quoted by Russian news agencies, the Krasnoyarsk governorate confirmed that Artyom Ouss was back in Russia, without specifying which city he was in or under what circumstances he had returned.

Artyom Ouss is wanted in the United States in connection with the illegal sale of American technology to arms companies in Russia. He was arrested in October at Milan’s Malpensa airport. Pending a court decision on his extradition to the United States, he was under house arrest, with an electronic bracelet.

At the end of March, after an Italian court gave the green light to his extradition, he vanished. The Italian daily Corriere della Sera had claimed that the involvement of the Russian secret services in this escape was “not excluded“. Russian authorities had also placed Artyom Ouss on the wanted list, in an apparent attempt to secure his extradition through Italy to Russia rather than the United States. This incredible affair is part of the broader framework of tensions between the United States and Russia around the conflict in Ukraine. Washington and its Western allies have imposed sanctions on Moscow, targeting in particular the defense sector.

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Quoted on Tuesday by Ria Novosti, Artiom Ouss claimed that he had been forced to avoid house arrest in Italy because of the decision “policy“to extradite him to the United States, taken”under pressure from the American authorities“. “While I initially relied on his impartiality, the Italian court showed clear political bias“, he denounced. In concrete terms, Artiom Ouss is suspected, along with four other Russians and two Venezuelan oil brokers, of having purchased electronic components from the United States intended to equip planes, radars or missiles, and of having resold them to manufacturing companies. arms by circumventing the sanctions in force.

This network is suspected of having used the same front company to transfer hundreds of millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil to Russia and China.