Ukraine has asked businessman Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea, to act as a mediator in the peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.
As confirmed by a spokesman for Abramovich, the Ukrainian government has contacted the Russian billionaire to “help achieve peace.”
Abramovich’s role
Furthermore, Ukrainian film director Alexander Rodnyansky reported that Abramovich has been the only one who has responded to Ukraine’s requests:
“I can confirm that the Ukrainian side has been trying to find someone in Russia willing to help them negotiate peace. They have a relationship with him through the Jewish community and have asked him for help. Although Abramovich’s influence is limited, it is the only one who has responded to their requests for help”said.
Abramovich announced this weekend that he was leaving the administration of Chelsea in the hands of the club’s foundation, due to the moment that the United Kingdom is experiencing with Russia.
According to Israeli media, the country where Abramovich has a passport, the Russian billionaire is present at the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Belarus, but this has not been confirmed..
Abramovich and Putin
The fortune of Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea, was forged in the dismemberment of the Soviet Union. The ‘perestroika’ allowed it to take over assets and companies that had belonged to the Soviet government for ridiculously low prices compared to market value.
In this promotion, his good relationship with Boris Berezovsky, who became a millionaire selling cars in Russia and was a good friend of then President Boris Yeltsin, had a lot to do with it. That was the ‘pitch’ for Abramovich, who together with Berezovsky acquired the oil company Sibneft in 1995 for just 100 million pounds, through a controversial system of ‘loans for shares’.
To facilitate the deal, Abramovich admitted years later in a London court that he had bribed Russian officials to give the go-ahead. This explained why only £100 million was paid for the company. By the beginning of 2000, Sibneft had a turnover of more than 2,000 million pounds.
It was in January 2003 when Abramovich took the step of getting into European football and buying Chelsea, for an amount close to 90 million euros.. His goal was to get the London team to go from being just another candidate to dominating European football. And he got it. Since their rise to power, Chelsea have won 18 titles, including two European Cups. It only took two campaigns to win the “Premier League” for the first time in 50 years and the world football scene can no longer be understood without the Stamford Bridge club.
Abramovich’s situation as owner, however, has been tumultuous since 2018, when he was unable to renew his investor visa due to poor relations between Russia and the United Kingdom. He took an Israeli passport and has only visited London once since then, in November 2021. Last week, the Russian oligarch announced that he was leaving the administration of the club in the hands of his foundation, stepping aside until the war is over. between Ukraine and Russia. With the sale of his shareholding in Sibneft in 2005 to Gazprom, Abramovich pocketed some 11,000 million euros, which he then reinvested a year later in the purchase of the steel company Evraz. This is now his largest financial asset.
In the political sphere, Abramovich has always maintained a close link with Vladimir Putin, as confirmed by a court in England in September 2012, which declared that “he has privileged access to the president”, but that there was no evidence that he could “manipulate” him. In recent times and due to the bad relations between the United Kingdom and Russia, Abramovich has distanced himself from Putin.
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