The European Union removed billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev from the Belarus sanctions list...

The European Union removed billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev from the Belarus sanctions list. But he remains under Russia-related sanctions

Ambassadors of EU countries removed Russian billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev from the Belarus sanctions list on October 7.

Gutseriev was placed under these sanctions in June 2021. The Council of the EU explained the businessman’s inclusion on the list by his closeness to Alexander Lukashenko: Gutseriev provided financial support to his regime and benefited from it.

The businessman challenged the sanctions in European courts for several years. As a result, in May 2026 he secured the annulment of the Council of the EU’s latest decision to extend the sanctions. The court concluded that the Council had not provided sufficiently up-to-date evidence that the billionaire retained ties to Lukashenko’s regime.

The lifting of these restrictions does not mean that sanctions have been fully removed from Gutseriev. He remains under EU sanctions in connection with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

In 2024, the Czech publications Denik N and Respekt reported that Gutseriev had offered Western intelligence services information about Putin’s and Lukashenko’s plans in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. To that end, he twice met with representatives of the FBI and Czech police in Prague in 2022.

In September, the European Union lifted sanctions on two Russian billionaires at once: USM Holdings founder Alisher Usmanov and Alfa Group co-founder Mikhail Fridman. Both were placed on sanctions lists after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

@meduzalive