MOSCOW, April 10. /TASS/. Large businessmen who came under sanctions can and do challenge such decisions in court, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Earlier, the General Court of the European Union satisfied the claims of businessmen Pyotr Aven and Mikhail Fridman against the EU Council concerning canceling EU sanctions against them.

In response to a question from TASS whether the Kremlin sees the decision as common sense or whether it is politically motivated and speaks about the position of the businessmen themselves, Peskov said: "I think neither one nor the other. Each case is specific, and it must be taken separately."

"Of course, representatives of big business have the opportunity to challenge sanction decisions against themselves in court, and they use this opportunity. In any case, we consider all these sanctions illegal, unfair, destructive and, probably, even somewhat disgraceful to those agencies that imposed them," the Russian President’s press secretary said.

Moreover, the court rulings concerning Aven and Friedman refer only to "decisions of the EU Council for the period from February 2022 to March 2023." The reversal of the latest decision to extend the EU blacklist for six months from March 2024 is not covered by this court decision, and, according to current EU practice, its reversal would likely require a new trial. That means that the EU court rulings do not automatically exclude both businessmen from the EU blacklists.

To date, the EU blacklist for Russia includes 2,177 individuals. All of them are banned from entering the territory of the European Union, and their financial assets in EU countries are subject to seizure.