Lithuania announced today that it had joined Latvia and Estonia in imposing sanctions on Russian oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman, who were removed from the European Union's sanctions list last week, Agence France-Presse reported.
This initiative by the three Baltic states - former Soviet republics bordering Russia and currently EU and NATO members - follows the EU's decision to remove these Kremlin-friendly billionaires from the list of sanctioned individuals, taken under pressure from France and Luxembourg last week.
"At the initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Interior Ministry has decided to include Usmanov and Fridman on the list of persona non grata (persona non grata - ed.)", the spokesman said of the Lithuanian Migration Service Rokas Pukinskas.
"The oligarchs are part of the Russian military machine. The "cashiers" "The regime should not be allowed to feel comfortable in Europe while Ukrainians are being killed," Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius said last week in response to the EU decision.
Latvia, which initially opposed the lifting of EU sanctions before giving in under pressure, has also adopted sanctions against the two oligarchs, state media LSM reported.
Estonia announced national sanctions against the two oligarchs last week.
"Usmanov and Fridman continue to support Russian aggression against Ukraine and contribute to its continuation," Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said.
Ukraine condemned what he called the "shameful and unjustified" lifting of European sanctions against these two oligarchs, AFP reports.
To everyone's surprise, France asked the EU to lift its sanctions against Russian billionaire of Uzbek origin Alisher Usmanov, citing issues related to "national security".
The day after the lifting of sanctions against Usmanov, the Azerbaijani authorities, with whom he is considered close, amnestied and released a Frenchman convicted of espionage in the country, whom the director of the French foreign intelligence service had personally gone to pick up from Baku.
For its part, Luxembourg had achieved the lifting of sanctions against the billionaire with dual Russian and Israeli citizenship Mikhail Fridman, who was suing the Grand Duchy for 15 billion euros in compensation.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which were occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of of World War II, are considered the most likely potential targets of Russian provocations, AFP notes.