BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union has removed three Russian business leaders from its sanctions targeting Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, the EU’s Official Journal showed on Thursday.

The deletion confirmed an earlier Reuters report.

The EU removed Grigory Berezkin, billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov, and Alexander Shulgin, former head of Russian e-commerce firm Ozon.

“Whether this decision can be seen as a sign of a shift from total sanctions policy to a more discretionary one or whether that would be ‘wishful thinking’ is difficult to say at this stage,” said the team of lawyers representing Berezkin and Shulgin.

(Reporting by Julia Payne and Alexander Marrow; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.