EU countries on Tuesday took oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman off a renewed Russia sanctions list in a move condemned by Ukraine as “shameful”.
A deal to extend the sanctions against some 3,000 individuals and entities, including President Vladimir Putin, was agreed just ahead of a Tuesday deadline when Latvia agreed to drop its veto opposing French efforts to secure the exemptions, diplomats said.
Ukraine lashed out at the decision to remove the asset freezes and visa bans on the two billionaires.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga called the EU move “shameful and unjustifiable”.
“Moscow is celebrating because it got what it wanted: a sense of impunity, the humiliation of the EU, and division among Europeans,” Sybiga commented.
In between meetings at the UN General Assembly in New York, President Volodymyr Zelenksy called the move a “concession” to the Kremlin.
“At a time when Russia is carrying out brutal attacks on our people and even now, during the UN General Assembly, air raid alerts are ongoing in many regions because of drones and ballistic missiles signals about lifting sanctions on individual Russian oligarchs are self-defeating and counterproductive,” Zelensky said on social media.
– Compromise ends wrangling –
Usmanov and Fridman were added to the sanctions list after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 over allegations that their businesses provided significant revenues to the Kremlin.
A spokesman for Ireland, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said the “compromise” would extend the sanctions regime until September 22, 2029.
“The decision was also taken to delist certain individuals under the regime,” the spokesman added.
EU countries had been wrangling furiously after France joined Slovakia in demanding Russian-Uzbek billionaire Usmanov be removed from the blacklist.
Luxembourg then demanded that sanctions should also be lifted for Fridman as well.
Officials in Paris have cited “national security” concerns for their request on Usmanov, but refused publicly to give details.
A senior diplomat in Brussels told AFP that Paris explained the demand was linked to a potential prisoner release deal involving French nationals held in Azerbaijan. France has been seeking the release of a businessman jailed in Azerbaijan.
Luxembourg has pushed for Fridman to be removed as it battles his claim for 15 billion euros in damages for freezing his assets under EU sanctions.
The demand from France in particular riled other EU member states who argue that removing people for political reasons sets a dangerous precedent.
“It really sends the signal that you can blackmail your way to delisting,” said one EU diplomat talking on condition of anonymity.
“It’s shocking that France is the one blocking it all.”
“It was not a choice between a good solution and a bad one, but between a bad one and a far worse one,” Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs said of his country’s opposition to the sanctions exemptions.
Shortly after the deal was announced, Kulbergs said that France had agreed to start talks on extending its nuclear deterrent to Latvia and on increasing its air force presence in the Baltic state.
The Kremlin seized on the EU standoff to say it backed taking Usmanov and Fridman off the blacklist, and that the bloc should lift sanctions on “all Russian businessmen”.
– ‘Need stability’ –
Without the agreement, the EU risked seeing the sanctions lapse.
Now the agreement to prolong the sanctions for 36 months up from the previous six-month extensions means the EU should skip this particular headache for the forseeable future.
EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas insisted that the bloc needed “stability” by settling the future of its sanctions.
Metals tycoon Usmanov and banking magnate Fridman are among dozens of Russian businessmen suing the EU over the sanctions.
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