France kowtows to Putin and removes EU sanctions on Russian mobster

President Emmanuel Macron of France deserves heavy criticism for removing European Union sanctions on one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top allies, Alisher Usmanov.As the Financial Times reports, France was willing to blow up the EU’s entire Russian sanctions regime unless the EU waived sanctions on Usmanov. Luxembourg then demanded that another Putin crony, Mikhail Fridman, also be removed from EU sanctions. Usmanov and Fridman were sanctioned along with other Russian oligarchs following Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The intent of these sanctions was the same then as it is now: to punish Putin and his enablers by cutting off their financial resources. Recommended Stories But these are no small fish. Usmanov, as the Washington Examiner has reported previously, is a key conduit between the Russian mafia and the Kremlin. A financier for Putin’s inner circle, Usmanov is notorious for threatening defamation lawsuits when the media cover him accurately (unfortunately for him, the First Amendment, unlike European law, prioritizes public knowledge over the privacy of the corrupt). Regardless, it’s insane that he has received this undue relief from EU sanctions. Macron takes a different view. He justifies this deal as necessary to free French citizens who have been unjustly imprisoned in Azerbaijan (Usmanov has heavy Central Asian financial interests, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is notoriously corrupt). On paper, it seems like an uncomfortable but pragmatic resolution. In reality, Macron has bowed to French enemies at the expense of French allies.Here we see the darker form of Macron’s realpolitik, the reality beyond his gesticulating grandstanding for international norms. But Macron’s self-interest here lays waste to his clarion call for unified EU “strategic autonomy” in the face of foreign challenges. The ensuing risk is obvious.After all, why wouldn’t Putin or his allies now detain more Europeans? The Russian leader’s professional experience as a KGB intelligence officer makes him adept at manipulation and the creation of leverage amid perceived Western weakness. As the cases of Evan Gershkovich and others demonstrate, Putin has repeatedly shown his appetite for using innocent people as pawns in his broader strategic antics. The only way to respond to these antics is to punish them. Instead, Macron has rewarded them.TOM ROGAN — EU TO AI BUSINESSES: INVEST IN AMERICA, NOT EUROPEWhile U.S. and U.K. sanctions on Usmanov and Fridman remain in force, this EU action tells Putin that calculated coercion can break the West’s resolve. Amid escalating Russian terrorism in Europe and the United States, the timing of Macron’s betrayal is especially dangerous.Putin has learned how to get one of NATO’s three nuclear powers to dance.