EU agrees to delist Usmanov, Fridman after years of sanctions litigation

BRUSSELS, September 15, 2026 — The European Union agreed Tuesday to remove Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman from its Russia sanctions blacklist, bringing years of legal challenges by two of its highest-profile designated businessmen toward a close.

The deal came hours before sanctions on nearly 3,000 people and entities were due to expire and followed days of negotiations among the bloc’s 27 members. In return for the two delistings, governments agreed to renew the remaining measures for three years instead of the usual six months.

Both men have repeatedly taken the EU to court over sanctions imposed after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Their cases have forced the Council to defend not only the original grounds for their listings but subsequent decisions to keep them under asset freezes and travel restrictions.

Fridman won a key case in April 2024 when the EU General Court annulled sanctions covering an earlier period, finding that the Council had not sufficiently established the grounds used against him. Later measures remained in place, prompting further litigation over his continued designation.

Usmanov also pursued the Council through the EU courts. The General Court rejected one of his challenges in 2025, and he appealed before discontinuing the case in June 2026.

The breakthrough followed pressure from France to remove Usmanov and from Luxembourg to delist Fridman. Latvia initially refused to accept the compromise, saying a three-year extension should not come at the price of removing the two businessmen, but later abstained and allowed the agreement to proceed.

France’s demand over Usmanov had emerged as a central obstacle to renewing the sanctions before Tuesday’s deadline. The Irish EU presidency proposed pairing his removal with Fridman’s delisting and a 36-month renewal of the wider blacklist to break the impasse.

The Council had already bought negotiators an extra week on Sept. 15, extending the existing regime only until Sept. 22 while member states reviewed the listings. That temporary measure said sanctions should remain in force while Russia continued actions that violate fundamental rules of international law.

The agreement removes two men who have spent years contesting the legal basis for freezing their European assets while leaving the wider Russia blacklist intact for an unprecedented three year period