Roman Abramovich: The ‘billionaire from nowhere’ and his back-channel diplomacy
Abramovich’s diplomatic voyage
Roman Abramovich’s allies paint him as a philanthropist and football enthusiast who flung himself into attempts to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
His critics say he’s a cunning businessman who, having made his money from buying oil group Sibneft in an auction (which critics allege was rigged), would do almost anything to preserve his carefully-constructed life in the West and salvage his overseas assets.
The role played by Chelsea Football Club’s owner in Russia-Ukraine peace talks, which Vladimir Putin personally approved, remains unclear, according to a source sympathetic to the Russian billionaire, who spoke to the FT for this deep-dive by DD’s Arash Massoudi and a team of colleagues.
“Could it be a double agenda? Sure, but who else could do that — to help Ukraine and stop Russia?” the person close to him said. “Roman’s the only one who’s trying.”
Orphaned from the age of three, Abramovich found his way into oil trading after the collapse of the Soviet Union and — thanks to a chance encounter in 1994 with the Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky — was well placed to take advantage of the country’s pawning of its crown jewels.
During that period of turbulence, Abramovich acquired Sibneft with Berezovsky for about $200mn, a fraction of the $13bn for which he would sell it to state-owned Gazprom in 2005, a deal that provides the source of most of Abramovich’s wealth.
“He was a shadowy tycoon from Siberia [ . . .] then all of a sudden he is a legitimate British businessman with a fat cheque underwritten by the Russian government,” said Roman Borisovich, a former Russian banker turned anti-corruption campaigner.
The so-called “Billionaire from Nowhere” played down any suggestion that he was a close confidant of Putin as he snapped up a £200mn portfolio of UK property, various megayachts and the football club that made him a household name in Britain. (Side note: his 15-bedroom mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens was formerly the Soviet embassy.)
But as his Londongrad empire came under fire, Abramovich flipped the script that he had written for himself, using his personal relationship with Putin as his trump card and a source of leverage as a peacemaker as he jetted between Moscow, Israel and Turkey and even Kyiv.
“It looks like they have much closer relations than I believed. He was always closer to Putin than me, but I didn’t think he was this close,” said one oligarch who has known both men since the 1990s. “Nobody was aware. Nobody else could play this role.”
As Abramovich shuttles around, so too do some of his yachts. He owns or is linked to five yachts estimated to be worth almost $1bn, including several whose ownership remained secret until the FT first reported about their existence last week.
Solaris, which he reportedly owns, left a Turkish marina on Monday after the FT reported lawyers’ views that the UK-listed operator of the port risked violating sanctions by harbouring the vessel.