Kansas City Man Pleads Not Guilty in Russian Aviation Export Case

His business partner pleaded guilty and agreed to asset seizure, as their company is accused of supplying aircraft electronics to Russia amid U.S. sanctions.

• Douglas Edward Robertson, a Kansas City-area man, has pleaded not guilty to 26 federal criminal charges accusing him of conspiring to illegally export aviation-related technology to Russia.
• Robertson's business partner, Cyril Gregory Buyanovsky, pleaded guilty to two of the charges and agreed to the U.S. government's seizure of $500,000 of assets, most of them held by their company, KanRus Trading Co.
• KanRus Trading Co. is alleged to have supplied aircraft electronics to Russian companies and offered repair services for equipment used in Russian-manufactured aircraft.
• The arrests of Robertson and Buyanovsky in March coincided with the U.S. ramping up sanctions and financial penalties on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
• The indictment alleges that since 2020, Robertson and Buyanovsky conspired to evade U.S. export laws by concealing and misstating the true end users and destinations of their exports, shipping goods through intermediary companies in Armenia, Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates, and using foreign bank accounts outside Russia to funnel money from Russian customers to KanRus in the U.S.

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