Speaking to Reuters while at the UN General Assembly (UNGA), the foreign minister said the move was sending the wrong signal at the wrong time.

EU envoys agreed Tuesday to drop two high-profile billionaires, Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman, from the EU's Russian sanctions list in a compromise deal to renew sanctions on roughly 3,000 other listed individuals and entities.

"One country put a very strong position on the table that these two people must be delisted, otherwise we're actually losing the sanctions regime," Tsahkna told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the UNGA. "This is a totally wrong message."

"They need to explain themselves. There was no deep explanation," he said.

Earlier this month, France shocked other EU members when it pushed for Usmanov to be removed from EU sanctions, citing national security concerns. France came under pressure from Azerbaijan, where at least two French nationals are detained, three European diplomats told Reuters last week. They added that Paris had indicated in private that Baku was using Usmanov to "blackmail" it over the case of the two French citizens held in Azerbaijan, an assertion rejected by Baku.

The EU has just extended sanctions against nearly 3,000 individuals and entities linked to Russia's aggression for another three years.

This is a significant achievement, as it reduces the risk of future sanctions renewals becoming hostage to political bargaining.

However, to…

— Margus Tsahkna (@Tsahkna) September 22, 2026

Azerbaijan's interest in the Usmanov case beyond that is not clear, given Baku's recently cooling relations with Moscow and the fact Usmanov is a citizen of Russia and of Uzbekistan, on the other side of the Caspian Sea.

Usmanov has long been associated with luxury assets in Western Europe, including property on the French Riviera, and was placed under EU sanctions in 2022 as one of Russia's wealthiest businessmen.

There has been no public comment by the French presidency, despite diplomats saying the president' office had taken the lead on the case.

Multiple European officials said France's position had left them perplexed, hurt Paris' credibility and roiled efforts to present a united European front against Russia. Luxembourg, meanwhile, pushed for the removal of Fridman. 

"The delisting is sending a very bad signal at a very wrong time when Russia is actually putting more pressure on Ukraine and attacking the civil infrastructure people," Tsahkna said.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Deputy Secretary General Kerli Veski told ERR there was no reason to remove either oligarch, saying both have been on the list since 2022 for supporting the Kremlin and the war in Ukraine. She warned that loosening the regime poses a major risk and would set a bad precedent, and said the best solution would be to extend sanctions for at least six months without removing a single name.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!