Zelensky asked Jewish oligarch Roman Abramovich to secure direct talks with Putin – Financial Times
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Russian Jewish oligarch Roman Abramovich to tell Russian President Vladimir Putin that Kyiv was ready for direct talks, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
Four people familiar with the matter told the FT that Zelensky invited the former Chelsea FC owner to Kyiv, and asked him to tell Putin that he was ready to meet for their first bilateral summit since the war began over four years ago.
Notably, the report came days after Zelensky published a letter to Putin in which he called for direct talks and an end to the war.
The report noted that Kyiv wanted to underscore its serious intentions for talks with Moscow, even as the US, which has been mediating previous talks, is dealing with negotiations over ceasefires in Iran and Lebanon.
Putin appeared to corroborate the reports, stating on Friday that he met with “one of the representatives of our business circles,” and “this, shall we say, colleague,” in late May, after the colleague’s trip to Kyiv.
He told the unnamed person, whom he noted was acting in an unofficial capacity, that he had no interest in meeting Zelensky or saw any point in doing so.
“The only sense in it is for the Ukrainians to stop the advance of our armed forces,” Putin said.
What has Roman Abramovich done for Ukraine-Russia peace talks?
Abramovich and Putin have long-standing ties. Notably, Abramovich was the governor of Chukotka, a far-eastern region of Russia, from 2000 to 2008.
He was sanctioned by the EU at the start of the war and sold Chelsea FC just a few days later.
He has not publicly condemned the war in Ukraine, but he has acted as an intermediary for Russia and Ukraine since 2022. A source close to him told the FT that he still remains involved in prisoner exchanges and aspects of a peace plan, though his role has diminished since the US and Russia started negotiating directly.
In March of 2022, the Sunday Times reported that Abramovich passed on a handwritten note from Zelensky to Putin that dictated the terms Ukraine would accept to end the war
In response, Putin reportedly told Abramovich: “Tell him I will thrash them.”
The Wall Street Journal reported later that Abramovich, who had been trying to help with peace talks, along with three other Ukrainian negotiators, were treated for symptoms consistent with chemical poisoning.
In the past, Abramovich brokered a round of negotiations in Istanbul in March of 2022, and later helped secure a deal to secure Ukrainian exports through the Black Sea.
According to one source, Abramovich is necessary to the Ukrainians because “he is the only Russian they will tolerate. He gets along with everyone.”
Zelensky pushes for face-to-face talks, Putin signals disinterest
This comes after Zelensky published an open letter to the Russian president on Thursday evening in which he called on Putin to agree to direct talks and end the war.
“We must determine what kind of future awaits the generations of Ukrainians and Russians who will come after us. If you do not personally come to the conclusion that it is time to end this war, Ukraine will continue fighting for its existence,” he wrote.
“You will not have enough money or political capital to keep buying the loyalty of Russians the way you have for the past 26 years.”
Two Ukrainian sources who spoke to the FT said the private message to Putin was similar to the open letter, although one noted that the tone was slightly less antagonistic than that of the Thursday letter.
Putin said Friday that he found the letter rude and that he thought it created “a condition under which it is actually impossible to hold any in-person meetings at all.”
“I honestly just don’t see or understand how Russia could trust people who have been talking about the need to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia for years?” he said earlier
According to Abramovich, Zelensky “thinks he can solve everything through the magic of his personal charisma at a leadership meeting.”
Zelensky has repeatedly pushed for direct, face-to-face negotiations with Putin throughout the war, but sources told the FT that the Russian president was uninterested.
“This is not something Putin goes for at all. And it doesn’t really work on Trump either. But Zelensky is totally fixated on it,” one source told the FT.
Though efforts to reach a deal or have talks are at an impasse, Zelensky has still continued to push for direct talks.
“I don’t think anything substantial will happen until the end of summer,” a source close to Zelensky said. The source emphasized that US President Donald Trump was still focused on Iran, and Moscow had not yet realized that it cannot regain the territory it lost in Donbas.
The Ukrainian president’s office declined to comment on the FT report, while the Kremlin and a spokesperson for Abramovich did not respond to the outlet’s requests for comment.
