On Wednesday September 9, the General Court of the European Union rejected a new appeal by Roman Abramovitch against the sanctions taken against him after the invasion of Ukraine. The businessman, of Russian, Israeli and Portuguese nationality, great art collector and former husband of Dasha Zhukova, currently remains subject to the European regime of asset freezing and travel restrictions.
Abramovitch this time contested the acts by which the Council of the European Union had extended the restrictive measures targeting him, first until September 15, 2025 and then until March 15, 2026. He requested their annulment as well as compensation for the moral damage he considered to have suffered. The Court rejects all of his arguments. It considers in particular that the Council has not delegated its decision-making power to the working groups responsible for preparing the review of the sanctions and judges the criteria used “objective, sufficiently precise and proportionate”.
The jurisdiction is based in particular on Abramovich’s place in the Russian economy. He is the largest shareholder in Evraz, one of Russia’s major steel and mining groups, and also holds stakes in Norilsk Nickel, a major producer of palladium and nickel. For the Court, these sectors provide substantial revenue to the Russian government. The judges thus dismiss Abramovitch’s argument that he was targeted solely because of his notoriety.
This decision concerns a figure who has long been very present in the art world. With Dasha Zhukova, from whom he separated in 2016 before their divorce, Abramovitch had built up one of the most important private collections of modern and contemporary art revealed in recent years. A survey published in 2023 based on offshore documents identified 367 works, valued at $963 million in 2018. Monet, Matisse, Picasso, Magritte, Natalia Gontcharova, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Paula Rego and David Hockney appear in this set in particular. In 2008, Abramovitch made his mark on the market by purchasing Benefits Supervisor Sleeping by Lucian Freud for $33.6 million and a Triptych by Francis Bacon for 86.3 million.
Her journey in art is above all inseparable from that of Dasha Zhukova. The two spouses founded the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in 2008, which became Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum, of which Zhukova has remained the central figure, has been installed since 2015 in Gorki Park in the former Vremena Goda restaurant refurbished by Rem Koolhaas and OMA.
The Court had already rejected two appeals from Abramovitch, in December 2023 and then in September 2025. The individual sanctions of the Union have since been renewed until September 15, 2026. Abramovitch can appeal against the judgment of September 9 before the Court of Justice of the European Union, limited to questions of law.
