Council Renews the EU's Russia Individual Listings for 36 Months to September 2029 With Usmanov and Fridman Removed — Three Baltic States Re-List Both Men Nationally

The sequence ran over three days. Ambassadors reached a provisional deal on Monday; Latvia objected during the written procedure launched that evening; on Tuesday afternoon Riga stood aside without voting for the removals, the instrument Euronews and Agence Europe both describe as a constructive abstention, and the procedure closed. The Kyiv Independent's diplomats had Belgium, Lithuania and Estonia abstaining as well; Euronews named only Latvia, and the Council's release names no state. Andris Kulbergs, Latvia's prime minister: "This was not a choice between a good and a bad solution, but between a bad and a much worse one." France had sought Usmanov's removal on national-security grounds it did not detail; Luxembourg, which faces Fridman's claim over roughly USD 16 billion of frozen assets, had sought his. On Wednesday morning Azerbaijan pardoned Martin Ryan, a French national sentenced in March to ten years for espionage, and the French foreign ministry spoke of a patient and rigorous dialogue with Baku; Azerbaijan says the two matters are unconnected.

The national re-listings followed within hours. Latvia's order, under its Law on International and National Sanctions, took effect on signature: both men must declare their Latvian assets to the Financial Intelligence Service within six weeks. Tsahkna said the two "continue to support the aggressor". Sinkevičius wrote that the regime's wallets must not feel at ease in Europe while Ukrainians are being killed, and that he had instructed the authorities to initiate national measures; Lithuania will also declare both men undesirable. Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine's foreign minister, said Moscow was celebrating "a sense of impunity, the humiliation of the EU, and division among Europeans".

The 36-month term removes five unanimity checkpoints from the listings regime, but the economic sanctions under the separate 2014 decision still come back every six months, so the leverage has moved from one instrument to the other rather than disappeared. The delisting leaves two men off the EU list and back on Latvia's the same evening, with Estonia and Lithuania announced and not yet enacted: their Latvian assets stay frozen under Latvian law while the EU-wide freeze lifts, a split the directly applicable regulation was designed to make unnecessary. The next test of the same 27 is 12 October, when 1,600 military-industrial names go to the Council under the same unanimity rule. Signal No. 152 closed the file with the Council's own release and the Latvian order; No. 150 had the provisional deal and the arithmetic of the votes not held.