The train spends every six months: Friday, March 14, the countries of the European Union have extended to the sanctions which target more than 2,400 personalities and presumed entities linked to the Russian regime until September. The list established by the EU Council and Kaja Kallas, the high representative for foreign affairs, is the subject of tense negotiations between states, conveniently put on the back of Hungary alone, which demanded the withdrawal of nine names. Four were finally withdrawn, and the country of Viktor Orban ended up rallying, as for economic sanctions, to the agreement which must be taken unanimously from the 27 Member States.
Among the rehabilitated names is that of Gulbakhor Ismailova, 65, a gynecologist who lives in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. Since April 2022, Russo-Ouzbeke was struck by the freezing of its assets and the ban on going to an EU country, sanctioned for its alleged role of nominees of its brother, Alicher Ousmanov. Even after having renounced a year ago for family trust, prior to the sanctions, provided by his brother without a child for his succession.
Collateral victims
The day after the state visit to Paris of the Ouzbek president in Paris, without a link to be established – the decision was undoubtedly established before -, the name of the sister was therefore removed, but that of the brother remained on the long list of people sanctioned. Alicher Ousmanov, 71, is indeed labeled “oligarch” of the regime when his success owes nothing to the privatizations launched after the fall of the USSR, ensures his defense. Russian of Ouzbèke origin, telecoms tycoon, it started with the production of plastic bags, before succeeding in metallurgy, but also to invest early in the Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Uber, Alibaba giants…
His business, from which he has been withdrawn for ten years to devote himself to his family and to philanthropy, would have no connection with the State … He however led a subsidiary of Gazprom until 2014, and Russian economic power is deemed closely linked to political power: sufficient to make it a “Putin straw man”as forbes qualified it?
Ousmanov won his trial against the American newspaper. Same spell made in Kurier, an Austrian newspaper who had been hailed to stamp him “One of Putin’s favorite oligarchs”without being able to support it. The EU council itself no longer defines Ousmanov as “oligarch” but as “Businessman” : his accusations were mainly based on these qualifiers who appeared in the press and then retracted, but the sanctions remain.
President of the International Fencing Federation, largely re -elected last November,
Including with European votes, after having presided it from 2008 to 2022, Ousmanov is also accused as the owner of the Kommersant newspaper, an economic daily. “He is criticized for having published a” fairly aggressive “platform by Dmitri Medvedev … but it is quite surreal that the EU criticizes a shareholder for not having censored the article of a former head of state! Especially since Kommer- sant is the only Russian newspaper to have carried out an interview with Volodymyr Zelensky, or to have published a forum with the United States ambassador opposing the war “tackle a relative of the file.
Ousmanov’s lawyer, Me Aaron Bass, abounds: “Who can believe that a tribune published in 2021 threatens the sovereignty of Ukraine today and that this justifies that the shareholder of this newspaper is deprived of all its economic rights? »»
Arbitrary decisions?
Ousmanov is the victim of a “Basic rupture”estimates his lawyer. After the Fiasco of the Em- Bargo on Iraq opened the era of targeted sanctions: individual EU sanctions are based today on article 215 of the Union functioning treaty. “On the basis of this vague, and therefore disturbing text, the Council defines categories of people and suspends all or part of their rights and freedoms by slamming their fingers, without prior control or a posteriori. This exorbitant power makes every citizen right to be worried about this flight forward. »»
A break that is also quantitative, develops Me Bass, which recalls that in eleven years, the EU had sanctioned 456 people linked to the regime of Bashar al-Assad. More serious, for the lawyer, she signs “The return to Europe of Sippen-Haft- the responsibility of Clan, blood ties- which was the prerogative of totalitarian regimes. »» After pleading in Luxembourg last week, Aaron Bass denounces an absence of transparency: “You don’t even know what to do to be removed from the list. Obviously, if you are involved in the military field, it is not very complicated … But otherwise, it is the most absolute vagueness. »»
Other emblematic cases have hit the headlines. Billionaire Mikhaïl Fridman, despite his call to a ceasefire in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine, spent two years on the black list. He remains sanctioned while European justice has judged that it was not linked to the Russian regime. Today he launched himself in an arbitration procedure and demanded 15 billion euros in Luxembourg. “They went so far as to sanction his ex-wife, with whom he had divorced in … 2004! “, Recalls Aaron Bass. Formula 1 pilot Nikita Mazepin, son of a Russian oligarch, also saw the sanctions which struck him lifted in 2024. From the biggest fish to the little ones, Me Bass believes that others are still collateral victims of sanctions established without discernment. “The situation seems even more desperate for people who are in the second curtain …”
Simple com com?
How to explain it? “These sanctions are to a large extent of the COM,” continues the lawyer. Ignorance, too: it is believed that Russia, it is oligarchs, that they can influence power … We preferred to sanction known people in the west rather than those who were at the heart of the problem to which Europe wanted to attack. We also want to show at a lower cost that we do not remain with our arms crossed before the distress of the Ukrainian people … and as we cannot admit that we have made a bad decision, we decide to sanction even more people … “
If individual sanctions have sometimes targeted right, like Andrei Kostine, a faithful banker of Putin, their targeting raises questions. The state sanctions can be evaluated: continuously reinforced, their impact has been real, even if they were partly circumvented (oil, gas, fertilizers, etc.). An eco-nomic and strategic assessment can be drawn from it. Will it be for freedoms?
