Politico: Ukraine’s sanctions adviser urges EU sanctions on Russian billionaires Vladimir Potanin and Vladimir Lisin after Mikhail Fridman and Alisher Usmanov are delisted

The EU created a “dangerous precedent” by lifting sanctions on Mikhail Fridman and Alisher Usmanov, but could regain credibility by imposing sanctions on two other Russian billionaires, Vladimir Potanin and Vladimir Lisin, according to Vladyslav Vlasiuk, the Ukrainian president’s commissioner for sanctions policy.“Everyone is aware about these guys but avoiding any action against them,” Vlasiuk told Politico. “But now there is leverage to push this forward.”He said adding Potanin, who heads Nornickel, and Lisin, who owns Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), to the EU sanctions list would effectively cut their companies off from trade in the European market.The size of Potanin’s and Lisin’s businesses, along with their substantial presence in Europe, has so far helped them avoid sanctions, Politico said. Lisin’s NLMK owns metalworking facilities in Belgium’s Wallonia region and has production sites in France, Italy, and Denmark. Europe’s continued reliance on Russian nickel and palladium has kept Potanin off the sanctions list.A spokesperson for Lisin told Politico, “This information campaign is unfair competition, where the sanctions-related agenda is leveraged as a way of pressure to eliminate a competitor from the market and to inflict further substantial harm on the European economy.” The spokesperson said neither Lisin nor NLMK cooperates with companies in Russia’s military-industrial complex.Potanin did not respond to Politico’s request for comment.Potanin avoided sanctions for a long time after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, but his assets in the U.S. were blocked in December 2022. The United Kingdom has also sanctioned him; the EU has not. During the war, Potanin substantially expanded his holdings in Russia, buying a large stake in Yandex, as well as Tinkoff Bank and Rosbank. Oleg Tinkov, the former owner of Tinkoff Bank, said Russian authorities had forced him to sell his stake “for next to nothing.”On September 22, the EU lifted sanctions on Fridman and Usmanov after lengthy negotiations, with France and Luxembourg backing the decision. Russian opposition figures strongly condemned the move.At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.