The EU lifted sanctions on Russian billionaires Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman but extended restrictions on more than 3,000 others for three years. Here’s how that deal works.

On September 22, EU countries agreed to remove two Russian billionaires from the sanctions list: USM Holdings founder Alisher Usmanov and Alfa Group co-founder Mikhail Fridman.

They also agreed to extend the broader list, which covers more than 3,000 people and entities, through September 22, 2029. Previously, the list had been reviewed every six months.

Removing Usmanov and Fridman was a key political condition for such a lengthy extension. France demanded Usmanov’s removal and, in return, secured a pardon for one of its citizens in Azerbaijan. Luxembourg demanded Fridman’s removal; the businessman had filed a $16 billion lawsuit against the country.

Because EU sanctions decisions require unanimous approval from all 27 member states. Each country has a veto.

That rule also delayed the extension. EU countries failed to reach an agreement in time and, facing the prospect that the entire list could expire, extended it for just seven days — through September 22. That bought them time to negotiate.

As Alyona Vandysheva, executive director of Transparency International Russia, told Meduza, removing the two Russian billionaires from the list was, under the circumstances, the only way to keep all the other sanctions in place:

Yes, though other cases aren’t entirely comparable to Usmanov’s and Fridman’s.

Vandysheva said every case is unique, though some share certain features: “There haven’t been many decisions like this in Europe, and they [mostly] concern businesspeople for whom there is no evidence that the grounds for sanctions still apply.” Restrictions can also be lifted if it emerges that there was not enough evidence to justify them in the first place.

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In September 2022, the EU lifted sanctions against Usmanov’s sister, Saodat Narziyeva, and Fridman’s former wife, Olga Aiziman. Vandysheva told Meduza that this happened during a regular review of the sanctions list, without a court ruling. According to Narziyeva’s representative, the sanctions had been based on false allegations that were later disproved. But the EU Council did not disclose its specific reasons for removing them, Vandysheva said:

Sanctions have also been lifted against other relatives of sanctioned businesspeople, Vandysheva said: “For example, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mother, Violetta Prigozhina, and the son of prominent businessman Dmitry Mazepin. The allegation against Nikita Mazepin was that his Formula One career had been financed through Uralkali. The court found that a family connection to a sanctioned person alone cannot be considered sufficient evidence.”

In some cases, people were removed after court proceedings. That happened with former Sistema vice president Sergey Mndoyants and former Ozon CEO Alexander Shulgin. After sanctions were imposed, Shulgin stepped down as Ozon’s CEO and left its board of directors. In September 2023, an EU court partially upheld his challenge, and a few days later the EU Council did not renew the sanctions against him.

Arkady Volozh’s case was similar: he publicly called Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine “barbaric,” distanced himself from Russia’s Yandex, and initiated the separation of Yandex NV from its Russian assets. In March 2024, the EU Council did not renew the sanctions against him. In this case, however, Vandysheva said the decision was influenced by “confidential discussions” within the Council, not by a court.

So sanctions do get lifted, for a variety of reasons.

There are several ways.

First, the EU Council can remove a person or company when it reviews the list. It can decline to renew sanctions if it believes the grounds for them no longer apply or are no longer convincing enough. Or it can make the decision for political reasons, as it did with Usmanov and Fridman.

Second, a person can petition the General Secretariat of the EU Council for removal. According to Vandysheva, this procedure applies if “the criteria for inclusion on the sanctions list are no longer met” — for example, because circumstances have changed.

Finally, sanctions can be challenged in court. Such cases are heard by courts in EU member states and by the EU General Court in Luxembourg. If a court finds that the Council failed to show that a person met the sanctions criteria, relied on outdated information, or made an error in its assessment, the decision to impose or extend the sanctions can be annulled.

The EU Council makes the final decision on sanctions. Political support from the European Commission also plays a significant role, Vandysheva said.

Essentially, yes. Vandysheva said this raises questions about the process’s transparency and casts doubt on how effective sanctions are as a tool:

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They did.

In April 2024, Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven won an EU court ruling annulling the sanctions decisions that had applied to them from February 2022 through March 2023. The court found that the EU Council had not provided enough evidence that Fridman and Aven “supported actions undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity, provided material or financial support to Russian leaders, or benefited from them,” Vandysheva told Meduza.

Fridman did not come off the list at the time: the EU Council continued to renew sanctions against him every six months. The court had annulled decisions covering a specific period, while later decisions remained in force.

Alisher Usmanov also challenged the sanctions in an EU court, but lost in February 2024. The court found that the EU Council had enough evidence to keep him on the list.

Usmanov also challenged claims in European publications that had been used as evidence for the sanctions, taking the matter to national courts. In January 2024, the Hamburg Regional Court barred the circulation of a Forbes claim that Usmanov had “fronted” for Putin and handled his business affairs. In January 2026, the same court barred FAZ from repeating several claims about the billionaire’s ties to the Russian authorities and his interference in Kommersant’s editorial policy.

“His lawyers explicitly linked these cases to an effort to undermine the evidence on which the EU sanctions were based,” Vandysheva said.

Yes, that’s likely, with some caveats.

Vandysheva said lifting the restrictions on the two billionaires on September 22 “does not give them any legal immunity”:

But this time, the EU Council itself removed Usmanov and Fridman from the sanctions list. In theory, that would make putting them back on the list harder: the Council would have to present new, legally sound grounds instead of simply repeating the old allegations.

Officially, they can now do the following in the EU:

1. Regain control of money and property frozen under EU sanctions. Their accounts at European banks, frozen since 2022, should be unfrozen. They can once again freely own and manage their villas, yachts, aircraft, and investment portfolios in the EU.
2. Travel freely within the EU. They can enter the Schengen Area without restrictions, obtain visas, stay in European countries, and transit through them.
3. Open new accounts and do business. They can register new companies, open bank and brokerage accounts with EU banks, and hold executive positions at European corporations.
4. Buy any goods and hire professionals. European companies can now legally accept their payments for goods, including luxury items, and for services such as building houses.

But they still won’t have “complete freedom”:

1. First, restrictions do not disappear instantly — databases take time to update. So “phantom” sanctions may remain in effect for now.
2. Second, some countries have announced plans to impose national sanctions on the billionaires, including Latvia and Estonia. “That means restrictions will remain in place in countries that put Usmanov and Fridman on their national lists,” Vandysheva said. Other sanctions lists remain unchanged. The United Kingdom, in particular, has no plans to review its sanctions against them.

• Third, reputation matters, and it cannot be restored quickly. Having been placed on any sanctions list remains a red flag in bank background checks and other compliance reviews, even after removal. Unfreezing existing accounts may also take a long time: large financial institutions will conduct lengthy internal reviews because they are concerned, for example, about possible secondary sanctions from the U.S.