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Decision 2014/145/CFSP is the EU's standing individual-sanctions regime (asset freeze + travel ban) against persons and entities responsible for actions undermining or threatening Ukraine's territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence. Article 6 sets the regime's expiry date and is renewed roughly every six months by a Council decision. The prior renewal, Decision (CFSP) 2026/696 (14 March 2026), extended the regime to 15 September 2026 and updated the listing entries for 132 individuals and 77 entities.
Going into the 15 September 2026 deadline, Coreper (EU ambassadors) could not reach the unanimity required to adopt the next six-month renewal: France and Slovakia pushed to remove Russian oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Alisher Usmanov from the list, which other member states did not accept in time. Rather than let the regime lapse, the Council adopted this decision as a stopgap, pushing the expiry to 22 September 2026 — a seven-day technical extension, not a substantive renewal — while consultations on the full package continue.
asset-freeze/travel-ban list is untouched by this decision.
France/Slovakia's delisting push succeeds, Fridman- and Usmanov-linked holding structures (e.g., LetterOne, USM Holdings) would be a rare EU sanctions de-escalation worth filing as polarity: liberalising.
signal the regime is becoming politically contested inside the Council for the first time since its 2014 creation.
renewal, a further short extension, or an actual delisting.