The European Union scored an important legal victory over Russia with its sanctions policy on June 5 as the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg issued an opinion stating that visa bans and asset freezes of five prominent Russian businessmen deemed closed to the Kremlin are not only lawful but also Brussels doesn't need to prove their ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime.
Following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU blacklisted the five Russians -- Dmitry Pumpyanskiy, Dmitry Mazepin, Tigran Khudaverdyan, Viktor Rashnikov, and German Khan -- and accused them of undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the war-torn country.
The quintet, together with up to 80 other sanctioned Russians and Belarusians, petitioned the ECJ to be removed from the black list on various grounds. The cases were dismissed in 2023, and the judges at the time noted they that all five held high positions in the Russian economy, and that those sectors provided a substantial source of revenue for the Kremlin.
They all appealed the court's initial ruling, and before the final verdict, one of the court's Advocate Generals was requested to deliver an opinion on their appeals. This opinion isn't binding on the court, but in most cases the court rules in line with the opinion.
In this case, given the clear view the Advocate General delivered, a ruling could come as early as July or after the EU court's summer recess in August.
The impending ruling is also likely the end of the road for the quintet's legal quest in the EU's court system to get their sanctions removed. Given that other Russian businessmen have made similar appeals to be delisted, it's fair to assume not many will be successful going forward.
Setting A Precedent For Sanctions
The opinion sets a sort of precedent and spells out one thing: The legal framework for the bloc's Russia sanctions policy appears solid.
The opinion states clearly that there is "a rational relationship" between sanctioning leading businesspeople who provide a substantial revenue to the Russian government and the objective of the restrictive measures. The objective is stated clearly: to "exert pressure on the Government of the Russian Federation to put an end to aggression of Russia in Ukraine by reducing the financial resources available." By sanctioning businessmen in the country, the economy is harmed, and thus it increases the cost of waging war against Kyiv.
The key thing in the opinion, however, is that when imposing these sanctions the EU doesn't have to prove "any specific conduct of the listed person, in particular in terms of influence over the Russian Government." This is what the sanctioned people in essence wanted to appeal: that while they are economically active in Russia, they have no direct sway on government policy when it comes to the war in Ukraine.
It now appears sufficient to produce general links with Putin to clear the legal hurdle. When the EU decided to sanction leading Russian businessmen, they referred to a meeting organized by Putin a few days after the Ukrainian full-scale invasion with almost 40 of the most economically influential Russians to discuss the impact of the course of action in the wake of Western sanctions.
There are other reasons, too, that Brussels lists these five. In Pumpyanskiy's case, the EU noted he participated in the congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in March 2023, in which Putin urged participants to put "patriotism before profit."
German Khan is one of the owners of Alfa Bank, and the bloc notes that Putin's eldest daughter, Maria, ran a charity project called Alfa-Endo that was funded by the bank.
Both Mazepin and Rashnikov are listed because their businesses provide "substantial resources of revenue to the state budget," whereas Tigran Khudaverdyan, executive director of one of Russia's leading technology companies Yandex, is blacklisted because the company "has been warning Russian users looking for news about Ukraine on its search engine of unreliable information on the Internet."
The ECJ ruling comes as a sigh of relief for the EU, which has faced some hurdles. It was battered in the same court for sanctions imposed on former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his entourage in 2014 for the "misappropriation of Ukrainian state funds." The sanctions were based on rather flimsy evidence and have since largely collapsed.
Brussels was also slapped on the wrist for the current Russia sanctions, notably restrictive measures on relatives of listed businessmen. Both Nikita Mazepin, the racing driving son of Dmitry Mazepin, and Violeta Prigozhina, the mother of the late Russian oligarch and Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, have won in the Luxembourg court and have since been delisted.
