European Union (EU) ambassadors agreed on Monday to lift sanctions on businessmen Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman as long as no EU government objects within the next few hours, diplomats told Reuters.

In exchange, sanctions on some 3,000 other Russia-linked individuals and entities would be renewed for 36 months — far longer than the usual 6 or 12 months — Euronews reported. France pushed for Usmanov, who holds Russian and Uzbek citizenship, to be removed, and Luxembourg conditioned its support on the same treatment for Fridman, who is seeking $16 billion from the grand duchy in arbitration. Both men were sanctioned in 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine. Lithuania and the Baltic states opposed the move: “It would send a lot of signals, and all of them are bad signals,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys told Reuters. Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi called the decision “immoral and self-destructive.” The EU’s Russia sanctions regime expires at midnight on Tuesday (22).