BRUSSELS -- The European Union looked set to remove Russian-Uzbek oligarch Alisher Usmanov and Russian-Israeli oligarch Mikhail Fridman from its sanctions list while prolonging the asset freezes and visa bans for the near 3,000 other individuals and entities on the blacklist by an unprecedented three years.
EU ambassadors on September 21 agreed on the move after weeks of negotiations, diplomats told RFE/RL.
The list, which normally is prolonged by unanimity every six months, and contain several other oligarchs as well as the Russian President Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, risked falling altogether as Slovakia in early September pushed to get Usmanov and Fridman off the list by leveraging its veto.
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EU, NATO Seek Stronger Response To Russian Threat After Leipzig 'Escalation'While Bratislava did the same during the latest renewal of the sanctions in March, the initial belief among European diplomats was that another roll-over would be accomplished by the same compromise as in the spring: a green light to the extension by six months rather than the 12 months most other member states pushed for without any “political de-listings.”
The talks, however, became more complicated last week as first France indicated that it also wanted Usmanov removed from the list, notably due to indications from Azerbaijan that they would release two French citizens imprisoned in the South Caucasus country if this went ahead.
Then, Luxembourg stepped in, indicating that if Usmanov was delisted, Fridman must also be removed. Other EU capitals, meanwhile, were adamant that they wouldn’t entertain the two being deleted given their feelings that the legal case against both was solid.
Usmanov failed in his legal bid to be delisted in EU court in both 2024 and 2025. And while Fridman won a major case against Brussels in 2024, he remained blacklisted as the ruling concerned the sanctions as formulated back in 2022-23, with the bloc having updated the listing criteria with new evidence since then.
The deadlock resulted in EU member states prolonging the package by just seven days, from a deadline of September 15 to buy time to find a resolution.
Several alternatives were floated, including lifting just the visa bans but not the asset freezes of the two but no consensus could be found.
In the end, a compromise was reached for the pair to be completely struck from the list if the next renewal was moved to the autumn of 2029.
This is not the first time EU member states have managed to leverage their vetoes in order to get people delisted. Hungary and Slovakia successfully lobbied last year for the removal of oligarch Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor and Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyaryov.