Following fraught negotiations that pushed the European Union sanctions regime to the brink of collapse, member states agreed on Tuesday, September 22, to renew individual measures against Russia for an unprecedented 36 months while removing Uzbek-Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov and Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman from the blacklist.
The European Union narrowly averted a major diplomatic collapse on Tuesday by securing a unanimous agreement to renew its individual sanctions against Russia for an unprecedented three-year term. All asset freezes and travel bans imposed due to Russia’s war in Ukraine were scheduled to expire at midnight unless the bloc’s 27 member nations achieved total consensus. To the intense anger of Kyiv and several Baltic capitals, the breakthrough required yielding to last-minute demands from France and Luxembourg to strip two high-profile billionaires from the blacklist.
French National Security Demands and the Azerbaijani Prisoner Deal
When pressed by European partners, French officials invoked reasons of national security without offering immediate public details.
According to diplomatic reports published by the Financial Times and cited by Euronews, the maneuver was tied to back-channel negotiations aimed at securing the release of French citizens imprisoned in Azerbaijan. Uzbekistan, supported by other Turkic nations, had also lobbied Brussels for two years to remove Usmanov, whom the EU originally sanctioned in the early days of the full-scale invasion due to his close ties to Vladimir Putin.
The Fridman Arbitration and the Luxembourg Demand
As Paris maintained its stance on Usmanov, Luxembourg demanded a similar exemption for Mikhail Fridman, a primary shareholder in Alfa Group.
The eleventh-hour compromises left other member states deeply uneasy. Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs led fierce opposition to the exemptions, arguing that the Baltic nation could not accept a deal that traded accountability for thousands of other listed individuals. However, facing imminent expiration of the entire sanctions architecture, Riga ultimately opted for a constructive abstention on Tuesday afternoon.
“Ce n’était pas un choix entre une bonne et une mauvaise solution, mais entre une mauvaise et une bien pire”
Andris Kulbergs, Prime Minister of Latvia
Kyiv’s Condemnation and the Kremlin Response
The concessions drew swift and furious condemnation from Kyiv. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga labeled the decision shameful and unjustifiable, accusing the European Union of handing Moscow a sense of impunity and deepening divisions among Western allies. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had previously warned that easing pressure on oligarchs sent the wrong signal while his country fights to end the war.
“The world needs not a political delisting, but timely and unconditional rollover of individual sanctions, until Moscow engages in serious peace negotiations and takes concrete steps to end its war against Ukraine.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, via Euronews
Capitalizing on the fractures, the Kremlin publicly demanded the complete removal of sanctions for all Russian business figures. Meanwhile, EU defenders of the new agreement pointed out that extending the remaining designations on approximately 2,600 to 3,000 individuals and entities to a 36-month cycle shields the bloc from recurring veto threats every six months.
Long-Term Stability Versus Precedent Risks
Diplomats meeting in Brussels acknowledged the heavy political cost of the compromise.
