Overview
- EU ministers agreed to take Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman off the Russia sanctions list and to extend travel, asset and business restrictions for about 3,000 people and organisations to 36 months under an Irish-presidency compromise.
- The delistings followed weeks of fraught talks in which France, Luxembourg and Slovakia pressed for removals while Latvia and the Baltic states resisted, and the compromise came after negotiators faced the prospect that existing measures would otherwise lapse.
- Diplomatic reporting links France’s push for Usmanov to securing the pardon of at least one French prisoner in Azerbaijan, and Luxembourg conditioned accepting one delisting on also removing Fridman because he is suing it for billions over frozen assets.
- The changes become binding once published in the EU Official Journal, at which point travel bans lift and frozen funds can be released unless individual member states keep national restrictions in place.
- Analysts and Kyiv warned the move risks setting a precedent that sanctions can be traded for national wins, while the longer three-year term reduces frequent renewal fights but concentrates the political cost of last-minute concessions.