AFP published this article:

A European court on Wednesday cancelled EU sanctions imposed on Violetta Prigozhina, the mother of Russian paramilitary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, ruling that Brussels had not proved she was linked to her son's actions in Ukraine.

In a statement, the EU General Court said even if Prigozhin was responsible for illegal acts in Ukraine, the evidence presented against his mother when the sanctions were applied last year was insufficient.

Prigozhin is the leader of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, a private military company active in various countries around the world and notably Ukraine, where it is fighting alongside regular units as part of Moscow's invasion.

The European Union has imposed visa bans and asset freezes on many Russians accused of playing a role in the conflict, starting in March 2014 when Moscow seized Ukraine's Crimea region.

In February last year, the day before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Brussels updated its sanctions lists with several names including that of Prighozin's 83-year-old mother, Violetta Prigozhina.

She challenged the order, however, and on Wednesday the EU court ruled in her favour.

In a statement, it said that even if Prighozin was "responsible for actions undermining the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, the link between Ms Prigozhina and her son established at the time of the adoption of the contested acts is based solely on their family relationship and is therefore not sufficient to justify her inclusion on the contested lists."

The EU had argued that Prigozhina was owner of the Concord Management and Consulting company, a subsidiary of her son's Concord group, and that this was connected to her son's paramilitary activity in Ukraine.

But the court was presented with evidence that she had not been the owner of the company since 2017, even if she is still a shareholder, and that EU sanctions experts had failed to demonstrates she had other business interests with her son.

The ruling came as Prigozhin claimed in a social media post that Wagner forces had captured the eastern part of the besieged Ukrainian town of Bakhmut after intense fighting.