More than a century ago, the French writer Anatole France mocked the “majestic equality” of the law, which forbade rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets and stealing bread. They might have been equal before the law, but hardly equal in their ability to navigate it.

The EU — and, ironically, France itself — has now provided a modern variation on his joke. 

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a Russian passport has come with a growing list of restrictions in Europe, from banking and visas to asylum procedures. But not everyone is affected equally by those barriers. Russia’s wealthiest and best-connected individuals and organizations have resources and years to contest measures imposed on them and, in doing so, to make courts and governments look beyond the passport and ask who they are and how much influence they had over Putin’s regime. Russians with far less money, access and time struggle to get beyond the word “Russian” in Europe at all.

But the inequality goes deeper than who has heavyweight lobbyists or can afford better lawyers. It lies in the radically different degrees of political agency expected from different Russians. Those closest to the Kremlin spend years explaining why their proximity to power gave them little say over Putin’s decisions and left them unable to stop the war. Those much further from the regime face the opposite expectation. With fewer resources and far more to lose, they are still expected to prove that they protested, spoke out or otherwise did all they could to bring Putin down. 

Few cases expose this inequality as clearly as those of Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman. Both Russian billionaires were sanctioned shortly after the full-scale invasion over what the EU described as their ties to President Vladimir Putin and Russian decision-makers. In the years that followed, their listings were repeatedly challenged in court and contested politically.

Slovakia had long pushed for Usmanov’s removal. But the stakes changed when France — one of the EU’s largest........

© The Moscow Times