Photo: DPAGerman industrial conglomerate Siemens said Friday it would scale back its operations in Russia after confirming gas turbines it sold to companies there had been diverted to Ukraine's Russian-annexed Crimea region in breach of sanctions. "All four gas turbines that were delivered in the summer of 2016... have since been locally modified and illegally moved to Crimea," the group said in a statement. The peninsula has been subject to EU sanctions on energy technology since Russia annexed it from Ukraine in 2014. New gas power projects in Russia would only be carried out through companies it controls, ensuring "Siemens-controlled delivery and installation" overseen by Siemens personnel, it added. The turbines had originally been supplied for a power-plant project in Taman, in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia - separated from Crimea by just a few kilometres of water.

Source: The Local July 21, 2017 08:03 UTC