The European Union excluded the cousin and business partner of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, Pavel Yezubov, from the sanctions lists. This is reported by the Official Journal of the EU.
The basis for this was the decision of the EU Court in Luxembourg, adopted in November 2024. At the same time, the sanctions of Great Britain will remain in force against him.
Yezubov is the son of the deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Oleksiy Yezubov. He owns part of Oleg Deripaska’s assets in the fields of insurance, media, development, hotel business and agro-industry. Under his control is the chain of kiosks “Rospechăt”, the agro-industrial company “Agrozemprodukt” and hotel development assets in the Kuban. In addition, Yezubov owns the Austrian hotel Aurelio Lech Ski Hotel, which was owned by Deripaska until 2022, and he also held the position of director of the California recording studio Ocean Studios Burbank.
Last week, the Council of the EU extended the personal restrictions for more than 2,500 natural and legal persons, who were found responsible for undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. At the same time, it was decided not to extend the sanctions against one unspecified person and to exclude another one due to his death.
In previous years, the EU has already lifted restrictions on individuals included in the sanctions lists. In March 2025, they were canceled for Volodymyr Rashevskyi, Gulbakhor Ismailova, Vyacheslav Kantor and the Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation Mykhailo Degtyarev, and this was accompanied by active lobbying of individual EU states.
Still in September 2023, the sanctions against Hryhoriy Berezkin were not extended. In 2025, the court satisfied Dmytro Pumpianskyi’s claim to cancel the extension of sanctions, but the Council of the EU decided to leave the restrictions in place, citing the control over his assets.
Revision of sanctions is also taking place outside the EU. In April of this year, the United States excluded Karina Rotenberg from the list. Previously, restrictions were lifted from several businessmen who publicly criticized the war, including Arkady Volozh in 2024 in the EU and Oleg Tinkov in 2023 in Great Britain.
