Hungary is again threatening to block the sanctions prepared by the European Union against Russia, demanding the exclusion of 7 Russian oligarchs from the bloc’s sanctions list, Radio Europa Liberă reports, citing several diplomatic sources familiar with the situation.

According to RFE/RL’s sources, the oligarchs that Budapest wants to exclude from the EU sanctions list are Aliser Usmanov, Piotr Aven, Viktor Rashnikov, Dmytro Mazepin, Mykhailo Fridman, Hryhoriy Berezkin and Vyacheslav Moshe Kantor.

In addition, Hungary also wants the sanctions against Nikita Mazepin, son of Dmytro Mazepin, and Gulbakhor Ismailova, sister of Alisher Usmanov, to be lifted.

The news comes after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a vocal opponent of sanctions against Russia, reiterated last week that they had failed.

Hungary’s prime minister said on public radio on Friday that the sanctions policy applied to Russia is wrong and he believes that “someone from Brussels should finally say: good people, we screwed up, let’s stop , because we will finish very badly.”

“If this were to happen, energy prices would immediately fall and inflation would instantly halve,” he argued, citing the fact that last year Hungary recorded the second highest inflation rate in Europe after Lithuania.

As a reminder, any new sanctions package against Moscow must be unanimously approved by EU member states, with Hungary last year threatening to use its veto to remove Patriarch Kirill of Russia from a new list of Russian officials to be sanctioned at the same time the sanctions are imposed. embargo against Russian oil.

Hungary wants to free Putin’s beloved oligarch from sanctions

The EU’s official journal calls Alisher Usmanov, one of Russia’s richest men, “a pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

Considered a favorite oligarch of Putin, the imposition of sanctions resulted in the freezing or confiscation of several of Usmanov’s assets in the West, including the superyacht Dilbar, valued at $600 million.

Only at the end of March last year, the Italian authorities confiscated Usmanov’s property and goods in Sardinia worth 66 million dollars, including an armored Mercedes-Maybach S650 Guard VR10 limousine worth 600,000 euros.

The EU also imposed sanctions on his sister after authorities discovered he had transferred several of his assets to her name, including the world’s largest superyacht Dilbar.

Other Russian oligarchs against whom Budapest is demanding the lifting of sanctions

The EU, on the other hand, claims about Piotr Aven that he is “one of about 50 wealthy Russian businessmen who regularly meet with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. He does not act independently of the Kremlin’s demands.”

At the age of 67, he retired last year as a director of Alfa Bank, the first commercial bank in Russia, he was the minister of international economic relations under President Boris Yeltsin.

Bloomberg estimates his fortune at more than 5 billion dollars. In March of last year, the Italian financial guard arrested an elite residential complex in Sardinia, which is co-owned by Aven.

Aven was one of three Russian oligarchs, along with Mikhail Fridman and Roman Abramovich, who unsuccessfully tried to get the sanctions lifted at the European Court of Justice last summer.

As for Viktor Rashnikov, the EU describes him as “a leading Russian oligarch who is the owner and chairman of the board of the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK)”, one of the largest taxpayers in Russia.

RFE/RL reminds that last year, Hungary also tried to get the sanctions against Usmanov, Aven and Rashnikov lifted, but eventually gave up due to strong opposition from other states and pressure from them.

Mykhailo Fridman and Nikita Mazepin, who also became targets of the Hungarian government’s generosity

Friedman, a London-based Russian oligarch, attracted international attention after complaining last year that he was living on just £2,500 a month under sanctions and that the West had forgotten his “good facts”.

Dmytro Mazepin, owner and CEO of fertilizer company Uralchim, is better known internationally for his son Nikita, a former Haas Formula 1 team driver. He was sanctioned by the EU due to his close relationship with his father and subsequently expelled from the Formula 1 track.

The EU’s official journal describes Mazepin Sr. as “a member of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.”

Vyacheslav Kantor and Hryhoriy Berezkin came under EU sanctions in April last year. About the first, the director of one of the largest producers of fertilizers in Russia, Brussels states that “he has repeatedly openly declared his support and friendship with Putin and maintains close relations with the Kremlin.

As for Berezkin, the EU describes him as “a top Russian businessman who is considered an ‘adjutant’ of President Vladimir Putin.”

Berezkin, in turn, filed a lawsuit against the sanctions in the EU Court last December.

The complaint, filed by his lawyers, claims that he “suffered serious damage to his reputation” and that “there is no significant connection between him and Russia’s policy in Ukraine.”

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