European Commission spokesperson Arianna Podesta said that Russians who feel the consequences of the war have the opportunity to “take action against it within the country”. She linked this response to a question from “Vot Tak” about Yulia Navalnaya’s comment.
The day before, EU countries removed Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman from the sanctions list and at the same time extended restrictions against nearly 3,000 Russia-linked individuals and legal entities for three years. According to Reuters, the decision was the result of pressure from France and Luxembourg.
Bloomberg wrote that Vladimir Putin has repeatedly told oligarchs in recent years that personal sanctions against them do not concern him, and that they should independently find a way out of the situation. According to the agency’s sources, Usmanov was helped by ties with leaders of the Caucasus and Central Asian countries, and the lifting of restrictions on Fridman came as a surprise even to him.
On September 23, the day after Usmanov was removed from the EU sanctions list, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev pardoned French citizen Martin Ryan, who in Azerbaijan had been sentenced to 10 years in prison on espionage charges. Euronews wrote that this could have been part of an agreement between Paris and Baku linked to the lifting of sanctions on Usmanov, but French authorities deny such a version.
Luxembourg, in turn, sought the lifting of sanctions on Fridman. The billionaire filed an arbitration claim against the country for $15.8 billion, and Luxembourg argued that its position in this dispute would become more vulnerable if the EU removed only Usmanov from the list.
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