In response to the EU's decision to lift sanctions on Russian businessmen Mikhail Fridman and Alisher Usmanov, the Ukrainian side has prepared a list to impose restrictions on more than 20 Russian oligarchs, Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said.
"It's an outrageous story, removing two Russian oligarchs. […] We fought until the last moment, both publicly and privately, to stop this from happening. […] Our response will again be asymmetric. You removed two oligarchs, we'll add twenty more. We've prepared a list, more than twenty Russian oligarchs. And we'll also keep working to bring these two back. That's our approach now, and we're already at the stage of formalizing it," the minister said.
The Ukrainian side is working to get Usmanov and Fridman sanctioned under national jurisdictions, Sybiha said. A number of countries have already confirmed they will not remove the two from their sanctions lists, according to the foreign minister.
"The president has already approved this, and we're also working at the national level to get Usmanov and Fridman sanctioned under national jurisdictions. Canada has confirmed to us it won't remove them from its list. We have Britain, Japan, Australia. And we'll keep pursuing these two individuals in all other jurisdictions," he said.
Ambassadors and permanent representatives of EU member states, after weeks of discussion, finally decided to extend sanctions over violations of Ukraine's territorial integrity for three years instead of the previous six months, but at the cost of exempting Usmanov and Fridman from them at the insistence of Slovakia, France and Luxembourg, as previously reported.
Ukraine imposed personal sanctions on Russian oligarchs Usmanov and Fridman on October 19, 2022. Ukraine's Economy Ministry said at the time that sanctions were introduced that day against 256 individuals — oligarchs from the Forbes list and their associates. The list included Fridman's Alfa Group partners Petr Aven, German Khan and Alexei Kuzmichev, as well as Vladimir Lisin, Leonid Mikhelson, Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, Mikhail Prokhorov, Suleiman Kerimov, Elena Baturina, Yuri Kovalchuk and others.
Ukraine nationalized Sense Bank (formerly Alfa-Bank), a major asset belonging to Fridman and his partners, in the summer of 2023. In 2022, ARMA also received court-ordered management of corporate rights and other assets belonging to IDS Ukraine, a Fridman-linked group and the country's largest producer and distributor of mineral water.
In September 2024, Ukraine's Justice Ministry filed a lawsuit with the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) to seize IDS Ukraine's assets and other Ukrainian assets linked to Fridman in favor of the state. These included shares and stakes in the Myrhorod Mineral Water Plant, the Morshyn Oskar Mineral Water Plant, Industrial and Distribution Systems, Alfa Insurance, and Alfa-Leasing Ukraine. Hearings in the case are ongoing.
Regarding Ukrainian assets belonging to Usmanov and his business partners, the Skoch and Streshinsky families, the HACC already ruled in 2024, following a Justice Ministry lawsuit, to seize them in favor of the state. This involved more than 165,000 tonnes of iron ore products worth an estimated more than UAH 2 billion, as well as 100% of the charter capital of Peter-Service Ukraine LLC, an IT company previously controlled by Usmanov, according to then-Deputy Justice Minister Inna Bahatykh.
