EU renews Russia sanctions, drops Russian billionaires Usmanov and Fridman

The European Union has agreed to remove Russian billionaires Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman from its restrictive measures list, striking a contentious deal that rolls over remaining asset freezes and travel bans on approximately 3,000 individuals and entities for three years. Tuesday's agreement concludes an unusually fraught diplomatic showdown in Brussels that pushed the bloc's sanctions architecture to the brink of expiration, drawing immediate condemnation from Kyiv and exposing deep divisions among member states over geopolitical compromise and the rule of law.

Under the terms brokered by Ireland’s EU presidency, the restrictive measures regime has been extended until September 22, 2029, according to reports compiled by The Star and The Guardian. Previously, individual designations under the Ukraine territorial-integrity framework required unanimous political approval every six months, creating recurring vulnerabilities where single national governments could stall the entire package. Senior officials including EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas argued that the bloc required stability by securing the future of its sanctions, allowing officials to bypass frequent political deadlock.

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The path to consensus, however, required significant concessions Cryptobriefing reports. France pushed aggressively for the removal of Usmanov, a Russian-Uzbek metals tycoon, citing undisclosed national security concerns. According to reporting from Yahoo Finance, diplomats in Brussels indicated that Paris sought the delisting to secure a potential prisoner release deal involving French nationals detained in Azerbaijan, a regime maintaining close ties to Usmanov. Meanwhile, Luxembourg demanded parallel relief for Fridman, the Russian-Israeli banking magnate who founded Alfa Group, as the Grand Duchy faced a staggering $16 billion arbitration claim launched by the oligarch over his frozen assets.

The exemptions infuriated numerous capitals that viewed the concessions as a dangerous precedent. Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs initially blocked the compromise, describing the choice as a contest between a bad outcome and a far worse one that threatened the collapse of sanctions covering thousands of entities. Latvia ultimately dropped its veto and abstained from the vote, averting a complete lapse of the blacklist just ahead of the deadline.

Ukrainian leadership delivered blistering rebukes in response to the decision. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking from the United Nations General Assembly, characterized the concessions as counterproductive while air raid alerts sounded across multiple regions. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha condemned the move on social media as shameful and unjustifiable, writing that Moscow was celebrating a sense of impunity and European division. Kyiv has subsequently urged individual European governments to bypass Brussels by imposing domestic national sanctions on both men.

Despite dropping their EU-level designations, neither man exits legal scrutiny entirely. The Kyiv Independent details that both billionaires built fortunes spanning mining, telecommunications, and finance while maintaining historical ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Usmanov controls major mining conglomerates supplying industrial operations linked to the Russian defense sector, while Fridman's corporate networks have provided insurance and logistics support to Russian security forces. Both businessmen have engaged in protracted litigation in European courts, with Fridman having previously secured partial legal victories challenging the validity of his initial 2022 listings.

Meanwhile, the Council of the European Union moves forward with broader enforcement mechanisms. Senior officials plan to present roughly 1,600 new designations targeting individuals and entities involved in the Russian military-industrial complex to foreign ministers next month. While the 36-month rollover successfully insulates the core sanctions architecture from immediate biannual showdowns, the bitter fallout over Usmanov and Fridman underscores ongoing friction between pragmatic national interests and collective enforcement across the bloc's broader World coverage.