Hungary and Slovakia ask EU to lift restrictions on six Russian oligarchs in exchange for extending other sanctions against Russia, - media
Hungary and Slovakia are demanding that the European Union lift the asset freeze and visa bans for six Russian oligarchs in order to approve the extension of other sanctions against Russia, which were imposed after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
This is reported by "Radio Liberty", Censor.NET informs.
According to European diplomats, this time Slovakia insists on lifting restrictions on billionaire Alisher Usmanov and businessman Mikhail Fridman.
Hungary, in turn, insists on removing oligarchs Dmitry Mazepin, Petr Aven, Musa Bazhaev and Albert Avdolyan from the list.
It is noted that a number of EU states have proposed an alternative solution: to remove from the list only one or two so-called "weak cases" that are unlikely to withstand a court challenge.
EU countries also propose to extend sanctions every 12 months instead of every six.
However, both Slovakia and Hungary rejected the proposals of other EU member states.
The newspaper notes that Budapest and Bratislava have previously blocked the extension of EU sanctions against Russia, seeking the removal of individuals. In March, a number of individuals were removed from the sanctions list, including Russian businessman Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor, Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyarev and Gulbakhor Ismailova, sister of billionaire tycoon Alisher Usmanov.
