Receive free War in Ukraine updates
We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest War in Ukraine news every morning.
The EU has agreed to lift sanctions against three Russian business tycoons targeted in response to Moscow’s war against Ukraine, in the most prominent delistings since the conflict began.
EU member states on Wednesday formally agreed to take off the sanctions list billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov, businessman Grigory Berezkin and Alexander Shulgin, the former head of ecommerce company Ozon — in a rare move to reduce the scope of the bloc’s restrictions against Moscow.
Akhmedov and Berezkin were placed on the bloc’s travel ban and asset freeze blacklist in March 2023 for having reported ties to the Kremlin. Shulgin was sanctioned in September 2022 for the same reason.
Georgy Shuvaev, a senior military official who died last year, was also delisted.
First imposed after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the EU’s sanctions against Moscow increased dramatically last year following President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The EU says that targeting prominent Russian businesspeople, politicians and military officials close to Putin is part of a wider effort to punish the Kremlin for the war, in addition to measures to restrict trade with Russia and freeze its assets abroad.
Shulgin last week won a case at the European Court of Justice against the sanctions, with the court ordering his delisting as it found there was insufficient evidence of him continuing to be influential and a “leading businessperson” after he stepped down as chief executive of Ozon.
The EU gave no official reasons for its decision to delist the tycoons whose names were confirmed by officials.
Previous delistings took place after Brussels received petitions containing information that the sanctioned individuals did not meet the criteria used to justify their restrictions.
A year ago the EU lifted sanctions against Saodat Narzieva, the sister of sanctioned industrialist Alisher Usmanov, and Olga Ayziman, ex-wife of sanctioned banker Mikhail Fridman.
Not included in Wednesday’s decision is Arkady Volozh, the founder of Yandex who has petitioned the EU for restrictions against him to be lifted following his decision to break from the company and publicly condemn the war.
Overall, the EU has sanctioned almost 1,800 individuals and entities in response to the war since 2014. The measures are reviewed and extended every six months and any changes require unanimity among the bloc’s 27 member states.