Slovakia did not secure any EU-sanctions relief for Russia, despite having pressured fellow member states until the last minute.

Its EU ambassador had been pushing to remove visa-bans and asset-freezes on two Russian oligarchs – Mikhail Fridman and Alisher Usmanov – until 4PM on Saturday (14 March).

Slovakia had threatened to let the EU’s whole Russia blacklist of some 2,670 people and entities legally expire on Sunday if it did not get its way, during three meetings in the EU Council this week.

It got verbal support from the equally Russia-friendly Hungary, which had also sought to delist Fridman and Usmanov, as well as five other Russians, according to EU diplomats.

But Hungary did not join Slovakia’s veto on the sanctions rollover and dropped its list-of-seven as the week went by.

Slovak diplomats are not authorised to answer press questions.

And its EU ambassador, Juraj Nociar, also said little inside the EU Council, except for reading out national decisions.

When asked why Slovakia gave in with nothing in return, one EU diplomat said: “Because they were isolated and it [the veto] was stupid. But ask them”.

A second EU diplomat said: “Your guess is as good as mine. One of the strangest U-turns I’ve seen”.

“No idea. They haven’t explained … we sincerely don’t know,” said a third EU diplomat.

A fourth EU diplomat said the EU Commission had promised Slovakia to review the Fridman and Usmanov listings if they won EU court challenges against the sanctions — but that is standard practice anyway.

The Russia sanctions renewal, which happens every six months, did delist seven other people.

The best-known was a Dutch oil trader, Niels Troost, who had traded Russian oil in violation of EU price-caps, while claiming that a US conman had falsely persuaded him the CIA would give him “non-official cover” to do so.

Troost is also under UK and Swiss sanctions, but the Swiss foreign ministry told EUobserver: “If the EU delists someone, Switzerland follows suit”.

The other one was a Russian oligarch’s daughter, Nikolaevna Bolotova, who owned luxury homes in Croatia and Latvia, allegedly on her father’s behalf.

They were let off the hook because the EU Council’s legal services felt they had “weak cases” against their legal challenges in the EU courts in Luxembourg, not because of Slovak-type political lobbying, EU diplomats said.

The other five were deleted because they had recently died, according to an internal EU document seen by EUobserver.

These included two ageing Russian politicians (Pavel Kachkaev and Sergei Marvin) and three Iranian military commanders killed in US and Israeli air-strikes in the ’12 Day War’ last June (Mohammad Bagheri, Amir Hajizadeh, and Hossein Salami).

Orbán next to break

Meanwhile, Slovakia’s U-turn on the sanctions rollover still left Hungary’s vetoes on €90bn of EU funds for Ukraine and on the 20th round of Russia sanctions.

Other EU leaders will try to break Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán at an EU summit in Brussels on 19 March.

“If Orbán insists on his current course, he would be crossing a bridge that has never crossed before, which is highly problematic,” said a senior EU diplomat.

“The EU cannot function properly if an agreement made by the leaders, which everybody signed up to, is then suddenly undercut by one of the leaders,” they added, referring to Orbán’s agreement to the €90bn loan at a summit last December.

Orbán blocked the loan and sanctions on grounds Ukraine had not repaired a Russian oil pipeline feeding Hungary.

But he has also used the pipeline row in his re-election campaign, where he trails 10 points behind the opposition ahead of a vote on 12 April.

He sent what he called a “delegation” of Hungarian officials to Ukraine to inspect Druzhba this week.

Hungarian ‘tourists’ in Kyiv

But Ukraine belittled his envoys by calling them “tourists”, as they had no official invitation.

And they had to run to air-raid shelters due to a Russian attack on Kyiv shortly after they arrived, highlighting the strangeness of Orbán’s Russia romance.

“Our experts are still denied access to the … pipeline while Brussels still refuses to face reality: Europe cannot overcome the [Iran war-linked] energy crisis without cheap Russian oil,” Orbán said on X on Saturday (13 March).

But speaking the same day, Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha thanked Sweden for stopping a shady Russian oil tanker.

“This was a dreadful and sleepless night in Ukraine. At least four killed and many injured people in the Kyiv region … The only proper response is stronger pressure, tougher sanctions,” Sybiha said also on X.

The European Commission has since asked Kyiv to allow an inspection mission to assess the damage to the Druzhba pipeline.