BRUSSELS — European Union ambassadors have constructed a permanent, winding queue outside the EU Council headquarters to physically hold all three thousand sanctioned Russian individuals and entities, and on Tuesday they personally escorted billionaires Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman past the entire line and through the front door.
The queue, which now stretches from the Rue de la Loi through the Cinquantenaire Park and into the Sonian Forest, was built to last three years, with each sanctioned person assigned a numbered folding chair and a laminated timetable. Usmanov and Fridman, however, were issued express passes after France and Luxembourg insisted the two men had waited long enough.
«We have built a queue that can hold three thousand people for three years, and we have built it well», said one senior EU diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. «But these two gentlemen have appointments elsewhere. The queue is for the others».
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had asked EU members hours earlier not to let the two billionaires skip ahead, was reportedly told the queue would continue to apply pressure on Moscow through its sheer length. Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs, the last holdout, abstained after being assured the express lane would be clearly marked and would not undermine the queue's structural integrity.
By evening, Usmanov and Fridman had been driven to the head of the line in separate cars, handed commemorative queue-skipping certificates, and waved through a side gate while the remaining three thousand sat in their numbered chairs, waiting.