Diplomats said that the decision would be finalised on Monday, 22 May, by EU foreign ministers at Brussels.

Human rights campaigners believe that international pressure is the only way to protect a Russian political prisoner.

Hungary has vetoed at least one Russian name on the EU list in a larger dispute that also involves the 11th round Russia sanctions, military assistance to Ukraine, and an Hungarian bank.

The EU will add Kara-Murza’s jailers to its list of the worst human rights offenders in the world. They join a mix of people who poisoned Russian Alexei Navalny, three years ago, Chinese torturers of Uighur Muslim, and African warlords.

The 11th round sanctions against Russia will restrict the sale of dual-use technologies and blacklist about 100 Russian officials and entities for their involvement in the war in Ukraine.

The EU is also planning to reimburse arms donors in Ukraine EUR 500m.

Three EU diplomats told EUobserver that Hungary has blocked all three procedures as part of a “furious protest” against Ukraine’s designation of its OTP Bank earlier this month as a “sponsors of war”, causing stigma to its international reputation.

Kyiv claims that OTP Bank’s Russian branches offer preferential loans to Russian military personnel and acknowledge the annexation by Russia of Ukrainian regions on their paperwork.

Peter Szijjarto, the Hungarian Foreign Minister, has vowed that he will stop the EU machinery until Ukraine releases OTP Bank from the charge.

“We can’t give it [the €500m EU reimbursement] Reuters reported that Szijjarto gave a green signal in Budapest on Tuesday, as long as OTP remained blacklisted.

“The same applies to sanctions,” he added.

The Hungarian Foreign Ministry did not respond to EUobserver’s question on Friday about why it blocked the Kara-Murza ruling, despite the fact that it has no connection to Ukraine or OTP Bank.

Hungarian opposition politicians are also unaware of why Prime Minister Viktor Orban was so moved by Ukraine’s OTP Bank.

The bank itself has stated that it did not request assistance from the Hungarian government.

Orban, who is friendly to Russia, has in the past also vetoed the listing of Russian VIPs such as patriarch Kirill and industrial champions such as Rosatom.

Orban is also embroiled in a long-running dispute about EU funds that have been frozen due to his abuses of the rule of laws in Hungary.

“Orban used do [Russian president Vladimir] Subtly, Putin is doing his bidding. It’s now shameless and in the open,” said Bill Browder a British financier, human rights activist, and friend of the Kara-Murzas.

Currently, EU sanctions are decided by unanimity. This gives individual EU leaders the opportunity to hold the rest of the EU to ransom because of national concerns.

The European Commission also proposed a new sanction regime that will target the worst kleptocrats of the future.

This suggests that the names should be added by a majority of EU states, as a gambit by the commission to lubricate things.

“The EU must eliminate the ability of a rogue nation to hijack moral policies for corrupt reasons,” Browder said to EUobserver.

He said, “This dysfunction cannot continue.”