The 1,600 names are already in the capitals, but adoption remains tied to the renewal

The package we wrote about on 2 September now has a concrete form on governments’ desks: according to what the Wider Europe briefing by RFE/RL reports on 8 September, the European External Action Service has transmitted to the capitals the list of 1,600 persons and entities candidates for the blacklist, mostly linked to the Russian defence industry.

The new element is not just the delivery, it is the chronology. The list, the same reconstruction reports, had been compiled before Berlin officially attributed to Moscow the drone episodes that in August led to the closure of Leipzig airport. The broader designations linked to that episode are being postponed, while in the following week the Union is expected to approve a narrower package, focused on those responsible for the deportation of Ukrainian minors. The distinction matters: it means that the bulk of the list is not ready because a political attribution has matured, but because it was already in preparation, and that the timeline now depends on a procedural obstacle.

That obstacle is the renewal of the individual measures due to expire. Still according to RFE/RL’s reconstruction, the extension to be decided unanimously by 15 September 2026 concerns over 3,000 persons and entities, including Vladimir Putin and Sergej Lavrov. The scope of that scope comes from anonymous diplomatic sources and currently finds no confirmation in a public act of the Union: we report it for what it is, a figure reported and not verifiable against a document.

On the method for exiting the impasse, the European diplomats cited suggest a concession: abandoning the twelve-month cycle and returning to a six-monthly renewal, in exchange for Bratislava’s commitment not to obtain political removals of individual names from the list. It is the exact reverse of the initial objective, which was to lengthen the cycle to reduce opportunities for veto. The same source recalls that in June 2026 sectoral sanctions against Russia were extended for a full year with the consent of Slovakia as well: the resistance therefore concerns the individual measures, not the entire framework.

On the level of sources, the reconstruction rests on two independent origins: the RFE/RL briefing, based on anonymous European diplomatic sources, and the Kyiv Post, which draws on European Pravda and its own sources in Brussels. The version published by GlobalSecurity.org is a rehash of the 8 September briefing and does not constitute an additional origin for counting purposes. No public act of the Union currently confirms either the scope of the list or the terms of the negotiation: it is preparatory work, which by definition is not filed in the Official Journal.

Seven days remain. If unanimity is not reached by 15 September, the individual measures currently in force will lapse upon expiry, regardless of the status of the list already distributed to the 27.

Sources: RFE/RL — Wider Europe Briefing; Kyiv Post (from European Pravda); GlobalSecurity.org (RFE/RL rehash).