Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
22 September the European Union extended sanctions against persons responsible for undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence of Ukraine. The press service of the European Council reported this.
The EU emphasized that the restrictions apply to more than 3 thousand natural and legal persons. However, after reviewing the sanctions, the Council of the EU decided not to renew them for three individuals and one organization, without specifying who they were.
The sanctions were extended for 36 months, until 22 September 2029. A spokesperson for Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the EU told Babel that Europeans had to “make a difficult compromise” for this, noting that until now the sanctions lists had been reviewed every six months.
The decision with the names of those removed from the list was published in the Official Journal of the EU. It names two Russian oligarchs – Mikhail Fridman and Alisher Usmanov. The third person whose sanctions the EU lifted turned out to be the former so‑called rector of the illegally created Crimean Federal University, collaborator Andriy Falaleyev. Also removed from the sanctions list was Redbird Corporate Services Ltd, a company registered in Mauritius that was included in the restrictions because of its connection to the transport of Russian oil.
France demanded the removal of sanctions on Fridman and Usmanov citing “national security considerations.” According to the Financial Times, Paris linked this issue to an agreement on the release of several French citizens being held in Azerbaijan. Luxembourg demanded Fridman’s removal from the sanctions list. Some Scandinavian and Baltic EU countries, including Latvia, opposed the decision, but ultimately agreed to it.
In response to the EU decision, Latvia on the same day introduced national financial restrictions and entry bans for Fridman and Usmanov, Latvian outlet TVNET wrote, citing documents added to the government meeting agenda.
Ukraine’s presidential commissioner for sanctions policy, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, noted that they are not merely Russian businessmen who were at one time close to the Kremlin. He recalled that a U.S. federal court decision in the Alfa Bank case against the Center for Public Integrity documented in detail that for many years there were serious public allegations against Fridman, Pyotr Aven, and Alfa structures, including drug trafficking and money laundering. Fridman denied these allegations; they were not proven. Vlasiuk called Usmanov’s history even more substantive, pointing to the operations of his industrial empire in a sector that provides significant revenues to the Russian government and fuels the Kremlin’s war machine.
The decision will be officially adopted only after the ratification procedure.
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