Hungary and Slovakia are asking the European Union to lift restrictions on six Russian businessmen in exchange for extending other sanctions against Russia, reports RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, citing several European diplomats. Slovakia this time wants to exclude Alisher Usmanov and businessman Mikhail Fridman, while Hungary insists on excluding oligarchs Dmitry Mazepin, Petr Aven, Musa Bazhaev, and Albert Avdolyan from the list.
Currently, sanctions are imposed on more than 2600 individuals and entities after 18 rounds of restrictive measures, and they must be unanimously extended every six months, usually in mid-March and mid-September.
Hungary, and recently Slovakia, have used their veto rights to achieve the exclusion of certain individuals from the list.
In March, Russian businessman Vyacheslav Moshe Kantor, Russian sports minister Mikhail Degtyarev, and Gulbakhor Ismailova, sister of billionaire Alisher Usmanov, were removed from the "blacklist" after several weeks of painstaking diplomatic negotiations between European officials.
The deadline for extending the sanctions is September 15, and some compromise is expected to be reached next week.
Photo: AP