Article · Geopolitics · Money and markets · Lithuania
The EU list runs to 2029 without Usmanov and Fridman. What can Lithuania's promised national restrictions actually do?
On 22 September 2026 EU ambassadors agreed to extend the sanctions list of about 3,000 entries by 36 months, to 22 September 2029, and to remove Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman from it. That same evening Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius instructed institutions to start the process of national restrictions on both men. Lithuania has had a legal basis for this since 2025, but the list of persons has to be approved by the Government, and no such resolution exists as of this writing.
When we published “Latvia alone refused the EU sanctions compromise” on 22 September, there was no outcome yet: Latvia was holding up the package, and without its signature the whole list would have expired at the end of 22 September. Three things have changed since. The package went through. Latvia stopped blocking it. And Lithuania and Latvia both announced that same evening that they would apply their own, national restrictions to the two men who were removed. This piece is about the third point, because it is the only one that has not happened yet.