EU lifts sanctions against Usmanov and Fridman

The European Union excluded from the list of sanctions against Russia the founder of USM holding Alisher Usmanov and the founder of Alfa Group Mikhail Fridman. The decision is published in the EU Journal.

The EU Council has published a document according to which sanctions against Russia are extended for three years. The restrictions apply to 3,000 individuals and legal entities. The appendix notes that three individuals (Mr. Usmanov, Fridman and the former rector of the Crimean Federal University named after Vernadsky Andrey Falaleev) and one legal entity (Redbird Corporate Services Ltd) are excluded from the sanctions list.

Alisher Usmanov was included in the sanctions list in 2022. Lawyers of Mr. Usmanov repeatedly filed lawsuits with arguments to lift the sanctions, but the court of the European Union rejected them. The defense of the businessman also disputed false statements about Mr. Usmanov in the media. On August 14, his lawyers sent a letter to the European Commission in which they noted that over the years 2022-2026, more than 3.2 thousand publications in 60 countries, including all 27 EU member states, the United States and the United Kingdom, “were corrected to remove false allegations about Usmanov.”.