OREANDA-NEWS  The EU Council has made changes to the motivations with which 140 individuals and 41 organizations associated with Russia were included in the sanctions list, follows from the new regulations approved by the council.

In the reports justifying the introduction of personal sanctions, the characteristic "oligarch" no longer appears. For example, according to Alisher Usmanov, Peter Aven, Roman Abramovich, Viktor Rashnikov, Vyacheslav Kantor, Oleg Deripaska, this expression has been replaced with "leading businessman" (leading businessperson).

The word "oligarch" was also removed from most descriptions of the meeting of President Vladimir Putin with representatives of big business, which took place on February 24 ("meeting of oligarchs in the Kremlin" was replaced by "meeting of leading businessmen in the Kremlin").