Azerbaijan pardons French prisoner hours after EU delists Usmanov

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev pardoned jailed French citizen Martin Ryan on September 23, hours after the EU dropped tycoons Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman from its sanctions list, Euronews reported.

The Kremlin called for EU sanctions on all Russians to be lifted, while Latvia and Estonia said they would sanction the two men nationally and Kyiv and Russia's exiled opposition condemned the deal.

Ryan, who was serving a 10-year sentence for espionage, was freed with 19 other prisoners, including four foreign nationals, under a decree citing the convicts' health and family circumstances. A second Frenchman, water-management executive Anass Derraz, remains in jail, Euronews said. Paris has never confirmed that it sought Russian-Uzbek businessman Usmanov's delisting to free its nationals, and Baku has denied applying pressure.

The backlash lays bare the cost of the compromise under which EU ambassadors traded the two delistings for a three-year rollover of the rest of the regime. The Council of the EU formally extended the measures on some 3,000 individuals and entities until September 22, 2029, hours before they were due to lapse at midnight, and said it would not renew the listings of three individuals and one entity.

"We consider these sanctions to be illegal. Sanctions should be removed from Usmanov, and Fridman, and all Russian businessmen, and all Russian citizens," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, as quoted by Financial Times correspondent Max Seddon on X.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy raised the delistings with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen when they met in New York on September 22 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing his post on X.

"At a time when Russia is carrying out brutal attacks on our people - and even now, during the UN General Assembly, air raid alerts are ongoing in many regions because of drones and ballistic missiles - signals about lifting sanctions on individual Russian oligarchs are self-defeating and counterproductive," Zelenskiy said.

He added that wars are ended by resolve and strength, not concessions to those close to the aggressor, and thanked von der Leyen for her willingness to add more Russian names to the EU sanctions lists.

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, accused the European Commission of putting money before principles, contrasting the ease of the tycoons' delisting with the visa refusals and banking obstacles faced by Russians who fled political persecution or mobilisation.

"If you're rich, own a couple of yachts, and have connections - sanctions can apparently be lifted from you without much hassle," she wrote on X. "Vivat, European Commission! Vivat money and Putin's oligarchs!"

Latvia was the last member state to hold out and abstained in the final vote rather than block it, the Kyiv Independent reported. Riga had earlier asked for the decision to be postponed by two weeks, until after an upcoming parliamentary election in which the delisting would be politically toxic.

"Latvia opposed it until the very end and was the last EU member state to block it. Our position was the right one on moral and strategic grounds," Foreign Minister Baiba Braze said, calling the decision "unprecedented". Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs said the choice had been "between a bad and a much worse one".

Estonia also abstained and will likewise re-sanction the two men nationally, the Estonian government said. "Estonia did not support lifting sanctions on these two prominent Russian businessmen, as they continue to support the aggressor and contribute to its aggression," Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said. Three diplomats told the Kyiv Independent that Belgium and Lithuania had also committed to abstaining.

Riga said it had secured new security commitments from Paris alongside the deal. French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to start negotiations on Latvia joining France's nuclear deterrence initiative and to strengthen France's military presence in the country, "especially in the field of air defence", Kulbergs said, as reported by Reuters. France's forward deterrence initiative already includes the UK, Germany, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Denmark and Norway and allows the temporary hosting of French nuclear-capable aircraft, with Paris keeping sole control of its arsenal, Euronews reported.

Kulbergs warned that the deal sets a precedent. "I'm worried about the playbook which it leaves... 'Oh, we arrest some politicians somewhere, and then we can ask for a sanctions package'," he told Euronews, speaking before Ryan's release. "One by one cherry-picking out of sanctions, that is not the way to go. That is normalising Russia," he said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged other member states to follow Latvia and Estonia with national sanctions. "Moscow is celebrating because it got what it wanted: a sense of impunity, the humiliation of the EU, and division among Europeans," he said.

France and Slovakia had forced a one-week stopgap extension on September 14 by holding out for Usmanov's removal, before Luxembourg, which faces a $16bn arbitration claim from Fridman, demanded his delisting too. The third individual dropped from the list was Andrey Falaleev, a former rector of Crimea Federal University sanctioned in 2023, for whom the EU gave no reason.