EU foreign ministers reached a consensus on Tuesday to delist Usmanov and Fridman, allowing the two billionaires to travel freely and access previously frozen assets, even as the bloc prepared to renew sanctions on roughly 3,000 other Russian individuals and entities for another three years.
The decision followed intense lobbying by France, which privately told allies that Azerbaijan was leveraging Usmanov’s case to secure the release of two French citizens detained in Baku. On Wednesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev pardoned one of the French nationals, a step Paris described as a “humanitarian gesture.”
Ukraine’s sanctions commissioner, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, expressed shock at the EU’s shift, saying he could not “believe it” and questioning whether removing two high‑profile names was worth the political cost. Baltic leaders were equally vocal; Estonia’s foreign minister Margus Tsahkna warned that the move sent a “very bad signal at a wrong time” as Russia ramps up pressure on Kyiv, while Latvia initially blocked the proposal before agreeing to abstain.
Luxembourg, prompted by France’s stance, pressed for the same treatment for Fridman, who has filed a $16 billion claim against the Grand Duchy for the freezing of his assets. Other diplomats noted that the sanctions package was due to expire, giving France a window to negotiate exemptions.
EU foreign policy spokesperson Christian Wigand reiterated that the bloc would continue to tighten pressure on Russia’s military‑industrial complex and its “shadow fleet” of oil‑and‑gas tankers, noting that about 1,600 new entries are slated for the sanctions list alongside the three‑year renewal of existing measures.
British financier Bill Browder warned that lifting sanctions on any Russian oligarch could embolden them to seek alliances with “tin‑pot dictatorships” to pressure the West. Guntram Wolff, a senior fellow at the Brussels think‑tank Bruegel, warned that the exemption sends a “very negative signal” that the EU is willing to make “dubious” concessions under political pressure, though he doubted it would materially affect the war in Ukraine.
Analysts also flagged the diplomatic fallout for France, whose credibility within the EU may suffer as President Emmanuel Macron approaches the end of his term, potentially complicating future EU initiatives.