France wants billionaire Alisher Usmanov off the EU sanctions list

France has asked the European Union to remove Alisher Usmanov from its sanctions list, four days before the measures covering him expire.

Euronews reported the request on Sept. 11, citing four EU diplomats who said the French position had caused huge frustration among other member states. Paris has framed the move as a political compromise, calculating that Slovakia would drop its own objections in return. European Pravda has separately reported French diplomatic sources describing an unspecified national security matter connected to a request from international partners.

What is at stake is the entire individual sanctions regime. It covers more than 3,000 people and entities tied to Russia’s military-industrial complex and its prosecution of the war in Ukraine, and it lapses on Sept. 15 unless every member state agrees to renew it.

Unanimity is the mechanism that makes one country’s objection decisive.

Slovakia has used it repeatedly. Bratislava has spent months demanding the removal of Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman, the Israeli-Russian businessman, before it will approve any extension, and it pressed the same case in March before relenting at the last moment. Sanctions on individuals were last renewed on March 14.

France’s arrival changes the arithmetic. One state holding out can be pressured into folding. Two is a different negotiation, particularly when one of them is among the largest members and has been among Ukraine’s most vocal backers.

Ambassadors failed to agree on Sept. 11 and were scheduled to meet again on Monday, Sept. 14, a day before the measures expire.

The timing has made the request harder for other capitals to accept. Europe has been dealing with a run of hybrid incidents, including an attempted drone attack on Leipzig airport in Germany and incursions into NATO airspace, and several governments regard any softening of the list as the wrong signal.

A separate question is under discussion alongside it. Individual listings have been renewed every six months since 2022, and the bloc is now considering moving to a twelve-month cycle, which sectoral sanctions adopted in July.

Usmanov was born in Uzbekistan and built his fortune in Russia across metals, mining, telecommunications and technology. He is widely regarded as close to the Kremlin.

The EU added him to the list in March 2022, weeks after the full-scale invasion, describing him as having particularly close ties to President Vladimir Putin and accusing him of actively supporting Moscow’s policies of destabilisation in Ukraine. He challenged the designation at the bloc’s highest court and lost.

German prosecutors dropped a separate investigation into suspected sanctions evasion in December 2025, after Usmanov paid authorities in Munich around €10 million, about $11.8 million. That inquiry followed police raids on properties linked to him in Germany.

Neither the French foreign ministry nor representatives for Usmanov have explained the request further.