A deal nobody wanted
This was a deal very few wanted. It was a deal almost nobody supported. Yet it passed. On Tuesday, the European Union removed Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman, two Russian billionaires with known ties to the Kremlin, from its sanctions list. The move was not a change of heart. It was a ransom paid. Brussels blinked. With a final deadline approaching to extend punitive measures against Russia, the bloc's 27 member states were backed into a corner, forced to sacrifice two high profile targets to preserve the rest.
The entire sanctions package was at risk. Without unanimous agreement, the restrictions placed on nearly 3,000 Russian individuals and companies for supporting the war in Ukraine would have expired completely. A provisional agreement to delist the men had been floated and then failed on Monday, piling pressure on negotiators as the clock ticked down. Ireland, which holds the EU presidency, was left to broker what its officials openly called ‘a difficult compromise’. The choice became a stark one. They could either lose Usmanov and Fridman from the list or lose the list itself, an outcome that would have handed Moscow a spectacular political victory.
The decision was a concession. It was a painful compromise. It was not forgiveness. This was not a gesture of goodwill, nor a legal victory for the two billionaires, but a raw political calculation made in Brussels under extreme pressure to save the wider sanctions regime from total collapse. The deal secures those wider restrictions for another three years, a significant achievement in itself. But the price was steep. It came at the cost of two men whose inclusion was deeply symbolic. The reaction from Kyiv was immediate and angry, with officials stating that the EU was sending precisely the wrong signal to President Putin’s regime. The deal was done. The cost is still being counted.
The price of unanimity
This whole affair was born from a single word. Unanimity. The European Union’s foreign policy is not forged by majority rule, but by total consensus, a mechanism that requires all 27 member states to agree on any course of action relating to sanctions. There are no exceptions. One country can block everything. This principle is a jealously guarded relic of national sovereignty, a guarantee that no government can be dragged into a foreign policy position against its will by a vote in Brussels. It is also the EU’s greatest strategic weakness. It creates a recurring point of failure. The system works perfectly until it does not.
Every time the bloc’s Russia sanctions come up for renewal, this unanimity rule turns the process into a high stakes negotiation where the entire package is held hostage. The deadline becomes a weapon. Any single member state with a grievance, a separate political objective or a desire to extract a concession can simply refuse to give its consent until its demands are met. The objection need have nothing to do with Russia or Ukraine. This transforms a simple administrative extension into a period of intense diplomatic peril, where one government’s objection can threaten to unravel years of carefully constructed economic pressure against the Kremlin. This is the price of unity. It is a very high price.
This week’s events were a textbook example of that institutional vulnerability. The clock was ticking. The whole sanctions regime, affecting nearly 3,000 Russian entities, was due to expire at the end of Tuesday. An unnamed member state, or perhaps a small group of them, saw an opportunity and withheld their approval for renewal. Their price for signing was clear. They wanted Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman off the list. The other 26 nations, facing the catastrophic prospect of the entire sanctions architecture collapsing, had to make a choice. They had to pay.
The result was the ‘difficult compromise’ brokered by the Irish EU presidency. A compromise nobody wanted. It was a deal made under duress, a structural inevitability built into the very legal foundations of the EU’s power. Brussels was forced to sacrifice two of its most symbolic targets not because it had a change of heart, and not because of a persuasive legal argument from the oligarchs, but because the alternative was to hand Moscow an immense victory by letting all the restrictions lapse. The mechanism designed to preserve unity almost shattered it. A flaw had been exposed. The precedent has now been set.
The men who escaped the list
The symbolism is precise. It is also toxic. Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman are not just any businessmen. They represent the archetype of the post Soviet oligarch, men who built immense fortunes from the assets of the former USSR and whose continued success is perceived as being conditional on their loyalty to Vladimir Putin’s regime. Placing them on the sanctions list was a declaration. It was a statement that the EU saw them as key enablers of the Kremlin’s war machine and part of the power structure prosecuting the invasion of Ukraine. To remove them now, for reasons of procedural expediency rather than a reassessment of the facts, feels like a retraction of that statement. It feels like a retreat.
This is why the reaction from Kyiv has been so swift and so furious. Ukraine’s foreign ministry did not mince its words, arguing the delisting sends Moscow the wrong signals. For a nation fighting an existential war, signals matter immensely. A move like this is seen as a crack in the Western wall of support, a suggestion that European unity has a price and that its patience has limits. It tells the Kremlin that its strategy of waiting out the West might just work. It tells other oligarchs that escape is possible. For the soldiers in the trenches outside Kharkiv and the civilians in Odesa, the legal wrangling in Brussels over two billionaires feels very far away, but its consequences, a potential weakening of the economic pressure on their enemy, are terrifyingly close. The decision undermines the very logic of the sanctions regime. It has given Moscow a propaganda victory it did not have to earn.
A propaganda gift for Moscow
The Kremlin did not have to lift a finger. This was a self inflicted wound. A gift. Russian state television will feast on this for weeks, presenting the delisting of two prominent billionaires as the first major crack in the European sanctions wall. The story writes itself. It is a tale of a decadent and disunited West, fatigued by a conflict it cannot win, quietly beginning its retreat from the economic battlefield.
The EU’s credibility as a foreign policy actor rests on its ability to act collectively and hold a firm line once a position is taken. This compromise, born of procedural necessity, erodes that credibility. It was a bad look. It demonstrates that the bloc's unanimity requirement, intended as a source of strength, is also a profound vulnerability which can be exploited by any single member state seeking leverage. The message is ambiguous. For allies in Washington and London watching this display, it suggests European resolve is conditional, not absolute, a dangerous signal when confronting an adversary like Russia which views compromise as weakness and division as an opportunity.
The decision also offers a sliver of hope to the almost 3,000 other individuals and entities who remain on the sanctions register. Their lawyers will be studying this. They will study it closely. The delisting of Usmanov and Fridman was not based on a new finding that they were innocent of supporting the war, but was a political trade to save the wider list from expiring entirely. This creates a powerful incentive for others to launch legal challenges, hoping to exploit the same procedural choke points that proved successful on this occasion.
The floodgates have not opened. But a lock has been picked. It suggests that with enough legal pressure and the right political leverage, anyone can become a bargaining chip in the EU’s internal horse trading. Securing the extension of the main sanctions list was the primary goal, a necessary win to keep the pressure on Moscow. But that victory came at a steep price. It handed President Putin a clear propaganda coup, weakened the EU’s diplomatic standing, and has now created a pathway for others to follow Usmanov and Fridman off the list. The unity of the 27 was preserved on paper for another three years, but the spirit of that unity has been visibly damaged.
Dublin's difficult compromise
The Irish government, holding the rotating EU presidency, was left to announce the agreement. It was a thankless task. Dublin’s diplomats framed the decision as 'a difficult compromise'. This was a masterpiece of understatement. Very few of the twenty seven member states supported delisting Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman, yet the deal went through with the presidency’s reluctant stewardship. This is the central paradox of the six month presidency. The holder must often become the public face of a consensus it privately opposes, its own national interest subordinated to the desperate search for a deal that every single member can be persuaded not to veto.
The job is not to lead. The job is to broker. With the deadline for extending the entire Russia sanctions regime set for the end of Tuesday, the negotiations had already failed once on Monday. Time was running out. The alternative to this unpalatable concession was not a cleaner, better deal where the two oligarchs remained on the list. The alternative was the complete collapse of the sanctions package, a scenario in which nearly 3,000 individuals and companies linked to the Kremlin’s war effort would have their restrictions lifted overnight. This would have been a catastrophic failure for the European Union. It would have been a huge victory for Moscow.
Faced with this binary choice, the Irish presidency did what any presidency would have done. It chose the lesser of two evils. The objective became preserving the main list for another three years at any cost, even if that cost was the credibility of the sanctions process itself. Dublin was not acting for Ireland. It was acting for the bloc. The country holding the presidency is forced to absorb the political fallout from bargains struck to accommodate the objections of a single outlier, becoming the messenger for a decision almost nobody, including the messenger, actually wanted. It is a structural feature of EU foreign policy, a mechanism designed to forge unity which can also force the majority to yield to the demands of a tiny, intransigent minority.
An uneasy peace for three years
The list is secure. For three years. This is the victory the Irish presidency bought with the delisting of two oligarchs. The sanctions against almost 3,000 Russian individuals and companies will remain in force until late 2029, a hard won extension that prevents a total collapse of the EU's economic pressure on Moscow. Yet this was not a clean win. A precedent has been set. The method for extracting concessions is now public knowledge. Any of the twenty seven member states now understands that by threatening to veto the entire package, it can secure the removal of specific names from the list. The unanimity rule, intended to create strength, has revealed a point of fracture. A very deep one.
The legal victory for Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman will not go unnoticed in Moscow. They are now free. Dozens of other sanctioned Russians will see a path out. They have the money for lawyers. They will be studying the process that led to this week’s compromise, looking for leverage and preparing legal arguments against their own inclusion on the list. The fight will move from the high politics of Brussels summits into the slow, grinding machinery of the European Union's own courts. The bloc may find itself fighting a war of legal attrition on hundreds of fronts, a campaign for which it is ill prepared and which will consume immense political capital. The Kremlin does not need to win every case. It just needs to win a few.
This is not just about law. It is about politics. The three year extension provides a long period of stability. It also creates a very long run up to the next crisis. Moscow now has a clear objective and a proven strategy for the next renewal battle in September 2029. It does not need to persuade the entire European Union to abandon its support for Ukraine. It only needs to find and cultivate a single sympathetic government inside the bloc, one willing to use its veto to protect Russian interests in exchange for some unrelated concession. The lobbying has already begun. The search for the next weak link is on.
This is an uneasy peace. The core of the sanctions regime is intact, but its foundations have been damaged. The anger from Kyiv, which saw the move as sending the wrong signal, is a reminder of the diplomatic price paid. While the main list was saved from the Tuesday deadline, the deal has given every sanctioned Russian a sliver of hope. It has given the Kremlin a new tool. The clock is now ticking. Not towards the end of the war, but towards the next sanctions showdown in three years.
Sources. BBC News World: Ukraine anger as EU removes Russian oligarchs from sanctions list. Guardian UK: EU removes oligarchs from Russia sanctions list as deadline looms. France 24: EU fails to reach deal to lift sanctions on Russian oligarchs.
Analysis. Drafted with AI assistance from the sources listed above and reviewed by an editor before publication. Jnews links to the organisations it writes about.
