Four years. Alisher Usmanov has been running a full-spectrum lobbying operation against EU sanctions for that long. Now France and Slovakia are holding the entire sanctions rollover hostage to get him delisted. It came from something built, stage by stage, while too many people in Brussels and European capitals decided that a few bought interviews and some letters from non-EU presidents were just noise.
The Legal and Media Offensive
Stage one started in 2022, right after the EU sanctioned him. Usmanov filed dozens of lawsuits against EU institutions and individual governments, challenging the legality of the sanctions and the seizure of his superyacht. The yacht, by the way, was always described in friendly media as being named after his mother. That detail was not journalism. It was emotional packaging for a sanctions fight.
Stage two was the media operation. Usmanov bought interviews across the European press, with a heavy focus on French outlets. Journalists flew to Dubai to give him a platform. There he could present himself as a philanthropist, deny any real connection to Putin, and complain about Germans taking his boat. No uncomfortable questions. No fact-checking. Just a tribune. The Kremlin regularly launders propaganda through the interview format, since the outlet can claim it was merely relaying his words.
The Political Layer and the Azerbaijan Connection
Then came the political layer. In November 2023, the presidents of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan sent letters to Ursula von der Leyen supporting Usmanov and praising his contributions to their countries. Azerbaijan deserves attention here, because that connection becomes operational later.
By 2024, Hungary and Slovakia were pushing for his delisting, but they lacked the weight to force it through. So the operation escalated again. France became the heavy hitter. And the reason France is now willing to play this game is concrete self-interest. French citizens detained in Azerbaijan include Martin Ryan, who had been involved in supporting Armenia during the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflicts and is reportedly linked to French intelligence. Usmanov has direct access to Aliyev. The 2023 letters already proved that.
The credibility of the entire EU sanctions regime is being held hostage.
So the deal writes itself: Usmanov offers Paris his mediation on a sensitive Franco-Azerbaijani issue, and in return France lends its political weight to removing him from the EU sanctions list. Slovakia is the expendable cover.
The Cost of Four Years of Inaction
The failure happened earlier. Every stage was visible. The lawsuits were public. The interviews were public. The letters were public. The response from too many political actors was a shrug. The letters were ignored, so the problem was considered exhausted. The interviews were dismissed as irrelevant. That passivity gave Usmanov four years to build the exact advantage he is now using.
The way out requires naming the mechanism. France acts from something other than sovereign interest. France is acting as the target of a manipulation campaign run by one of Putin's wallets. Paris needs to hear that lobbying victimized it, not that it benefited from a clever diplomatic trade. If Macron trades Usmanov's delisting for help with Baku, the reputational cost will be permanent. Every future sanctions package will be treated as negotiable by every other Kremlin asset with a checkbook and a contact list.
The Window to Act
A concrete window exists. Zelensky will have a direct opportunity to raise this with Macron at the UN General Assembly at the end of the month. The sanctions rollover should be extended technically for another week to give that conversation time to happen. The minimum.
The broader lesson is that threats like this must be crushed at the outset, before a sanctioned oligarch has time to build courts, media, and presidents into a lobbying infrastructure. Usmanov did not win because he was smarter than the EU. He won because the EU gave him four years of inaction.