“He came to Kyiv. He said: I have a message directly for you, and I want to take your message and pass it on to Putin,” Zelenskyy told Sky News. “But he said it had to be done quietly, without publicity.”
Zelenskyy stressed that the meeting was not secret and said Abramovich sought to understand what concessions Ukraine might be willing to consider in potential peace negotiations.
“I told him that a ceasefire is the biggest compromise we can make,” Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian president also made clear that Kyiv would not surrender occupied Ukrainian territory, including Donbas.
“That was the key message. I said we would not step aside and we would not give you victory in that way,” Zelenskyy said. “When Abramovich received my message, he said he would speak directly to Putin.”
Abramovich has previously served as an informal intermediary between Russia and Ukraine. He played a role in organizing the Istanbul peace talks in March 2022 and was involved in negotiations that led to the Black Sea grain deal later that year.
According to the Financial Times, while Abramovich’s public role has diminished since Russia began direct negotiations with the United States in 2025, he remains involved in prisoner exchanges and other bilateral contacts between Moscow and Kyiv.
“He is needed because he is the only Russian who gets along with everyone,” one source told the newspaper.
From orphan to oligarch
Abramovich was born in Saratov in 1966. Orphaned at an early age after the deaths of both parents, he was raised by relatives in northern Russia and later in Moscow.
After military service and work as a mechanic during the final years of the Soviet Union, he entered business during the era of perestroika. His first venture was a small cooperative producing children’s toys, including rubber ducks.
During the early 1990s, Abramovich moved into oil trading and became involved in several lucrative commodity businesses. His fortunes changed dramatically after meeting influential businessman Boris Berezovsky, a key member of President Boris Yeltsin’s inner circle.
In 1996, Abramovich and Berezovsky acquired more than 70% of oil company Sibneft during Russia’s controversial privatization campaign for $100 million — a fraction of its market value. The deal became one of the defining transactions of Russia’s oligarch era.
Through Berezovsky, Abramovich gained access to Yeltsin’s family circle and became closely connected to Tatyana Dyachenko, the president’s daughter, and Valentin Yumashev, Yeltsin’s chief of staff. The group became known as “The Family” and played a central role in shaping Russian politics in the late 1990s.
Yumashev was among the figures who supported Putin’s rise to power and backed his appointment as prime minister in 1999. Abramovich aligned himself with Putin during the Kremlin’s later conflict with Berezovsky and has remained close to the Russian leader ever since.
Political and business influence
Abramovich entered politics in 1999 as a member of Russia’s State Duma representing Chukotka and became governor of the remote Arctic region in 2000. He held the post for eight years and later served as chairman of the regional parliament.
During that period, he registered several Sibneft subsidiaries in Chukotka, significantly boosting local tax revenues.
In addition to Russian citizenship, Abramovich also holds Portuguese and Israeli citizenship. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he has been sanctioned by the European Union, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Canada, Australia and several other countries.
His business empire expanded beyond oil. In 2000, he co-founded aluminum giant Rusal with fellow oligarch Oleg Deripaska before selling his stake for approximately $2 billion. In 2005, he sold Sibneft to Gazprom for $13.1 billion.
Abramovich then increasingly shifted his investments to Western assets.
Chelsea and sanctions
Abramovich became internationally famous in 2003 after purchasing English football club Chelsea FC for £140 million. Under his ownership, Chelsea transformed into one of Europe’s most successful clubs, winning multiple Premier League titles, domestic cups and European trophies.
He invested heavily in players and management, including personally helping bring Ukrainian football star Andriy Shevchenko to London in 2006.
After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK and EU and was forced to sell Chelsea. The British government allowed the transaction on the condition that he would not personally benefit from the sale and that proceeds would be directed toward humanitarian assistance related to Ukraine.
Chelsea was sold in May 2022 to a consortium led by American investor Todd Boehly for approximately $2.9 billion.
However, a dispute later emerged over how the funds should be distributed. Abramovich argued that assistance should support “all victims of the war in Ukraine,” including those in Russia, while the British government insisted the money should be used exclusively for humanitarian purposes in Ukraine.
In 2025, reports emerged that the UK government was considering legal action against Abramovich over delays in transferring the funds.
Assets transferred to children
According to The Guardian, Abramovich moved at least $4 billion in assets into trusts benefiting his seven children roughly three weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The assets reportedly included luxury real estate in Europe, the United States and Israel, as well as superyachts, helicopters and private jets.
The newspaper also reported that Abramovich transferred ownership of one of the world’s largest private contemporary art collections to his former wife, Dasha Zhukova. The collection, valued at nearly $1 billion, includes works by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.
According to Forbes' 2026 ranking, Abramovich and his family have a net worth of $9.3 billion, making him the 20th-richest Russian businessman. Bloomberg estimates his fortune at $8.39 billion.
Today, Abramovich remains the owner of investment company Millhouse and is the largest shareholder in Russian mining and steel group Evraz, holding a 28.64% stake. He also owns shares in Norilsk Nickel, Renaissance Insurance and several other major Russian companies.
Abramovich’s business interests once extended into Ukraine. Through Evraz, he acquired several mining and metallurgical assets in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in 2007 from structures linked to Ihor Kolomoisky and Hennadiy Boholyubov. Most of those assets were later sold, with the final transactions completed in 2018.