France wants one oligarch off the sanctions list, and Croatia backed the request: the price is a deal with Azerbaijan

France has asked for the Russian-Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov - a man the Union itself considers close to Vladimir Putin - to be removed from the European sanctions list. Croatia and Italy backed the request, according to the Financial Times. A majority of member states are against.

Up to this point it would all be an ordinary squabble over one oligarch. The strange part comes next.

Paris's request has nothing to do with Russia, or with the war in Ukraine. According to sources, France is trying to reach a deal with Azerbaijan on releasing several French citizens detained there - and taking Usmanov off the list is part of that trade. So sanctions imposed over Russian aggression are now being offered as currency to settle an entirely separate dispute.

European diplomats did not hide their surprise. Paris has never before pushed the Union to loosen measures against Russian oligarchs. One diplomat described the situation in a single word: astonishing.

When one gets through, the queue is long

Slovakia had already asked for both Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman to be delisted. As soon as it became clear Usmanov might get through, Luxembourg signalled it might ask for the same for Fridman. A dispute that began as one name threatened to become a list.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged European partners not to give way. His formulation was direct: Russian oligarchs, without whom Putin's system is unimaginable, must feel that nowhere in the world is safe for them while this war lasts.

The question that remains is bigger than any single name. If measures imposed because of a war can be traded for something unrelated to that war, then those measures are not a principle - they are a position in a negotiation. And a position, unlike a principle, has a price.

In the Balkans we know this by heart. For years it was explained to us that European conditions were immovable, that this was about values, not trade. Then we watch one capital request an exemption for one billionaire and pick up two backers. Who is going to tell us next time that the list of conditions is untouchable?