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After days of internal wrangling, EU ambassadors agreed to extend the bloc's roughly 3,000-person Russia sanctions list until September 2029 while removing billionaires Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman from it, a deal Latvia initially blocked before a compromise was reached. Ukrainian officials, including President Zelensky and Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, and Russian opposition figures like Leonid Volkov condemned the move as 'shameful' and self-defeating, while Latvia said it would impose its own national sanctions on the two men regardless. The episode, which included a failed vote on September 22 before final agreement, has become a flashpoint over Western resolve, with critics warning it sets a precedent for eroding sanctions pressure on Russia even as the war continues.