EU Court annuls Mikhail Gutseriev’s February 2025 Belarus listing

14 May 2026

The EU’s General Court has annulled Mikhail Gutseriev’s February 2025 Belarus relisting under Regulation (EC) 765/2006 – Case T‑286/25. This is the second time the General Court has annulled Mr Gutseriev’s listing – see our coverage of Case T-233/24, where the Court annulled Mr Gutseriev’s 2024 relisting.

Mr Gutseriev was EU-sanctioned in 2021 under Article 2(5) of Reg 765, as a prominent Russian businessman with links to the Lukashenko regime. The original listing grounds included an allegation that he had flown Russian workers to Belarus to replace striking state media staff. The EU removed this and two other grounds when relisting him in 2025.

Mr Gutseriev argued that the Council had made errors of assessment in maintaining his listing. He said his key Belarusian business interests no longer existed: the Nezhinsky potash project had been nationalised by Belarus in 2023; his energy sector links rested only on events from the 2020 Russia-Belarus oil crisis; and his commercial property interests in Minsk were not independently capable of establishing regime support. He also denied any ongoing personal relationship with President Lukashenko, disputed alleged meetings in 2023, and said his 2020 COVID-19 scanner donation was a charitable act rather than evidence of support for the Belarussian regime.

The Court agreed and annulled the listing. It held that:

• The Nezhinsky potash project had been nationalised. The Council had no updated evidence linking Mr Gutseriev to the successor state enterprise. It could not presume continued involvement based on his historical role in Slavkali.

• The energy sector grounds relied entirely on the 2020 Russia-Belarus oil crisis — 5 years before the 2025 relisting. The Council produced no current evidence of Belarus operations.

• The commercial property interests were secondary to the potash interests and could not independently justify listing.

• The Council failed to prove that alleged 2023 meetings with President Lukashenko took place. The victory of President Lukashenko’s daughter-in-law in a Russian music competition run by Mr Gutseriev did not demonstrate current ties to the regime.

• The 2020 COVID-19 scanner donation was too old to support listing once the other grounds had fallen away.

Mr Gutseriev remains subject to EU sanctions, having been relisted in February 2026 (on the same basis as the 2025 relisting). All EU delisting judgments are on our EU judgments pages.