EU reached an agreement

Brussels (dpa) — After weeks of difficult negotiations, EU member states on Saturday reached a last-minute agreement to extend sanctions against Russia after a compromise was reached over sanctioning two Russian oligarchs.

The agreement will leave prominent Russian oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman subject to punitive measures for now, despite demands from Slovakia and Hungary to remove them from the list.

However, the sanctions against the two men — along with roughly 2,600 other individuals and organizations — will be extended by only six months instead of 12 as originally planned.

In addition, sanctions against two individuals will not be renewed, as the council of member states said, saying there was only very weak evidence of the two’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine. Their names have not yet been disclosed.

EU sanctions typically include travel restrictions, asset freezes, and a prohibition on making funds or other economic resources available. In most cases, sanctions were imposed in response to what the EU views as Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked war against Ukraine, which Moscow started more than four years ago.

Those affected include numerous Russian politicians and senior officials, as well as a number of businesspeople with commercial activities in the EU. The latter group is being hit particularly hard by the measures.

Without Saturday’s renewal decision, the sanctions would have expired on Sunday.

Notes from APS Radio News

For quite some time, negotiations have been intermittent and have produced no long-lasting resolutions or achievement of a long-term peace accord.