An interesting story has hit the FT tonight claiming that Roman Abramovich had a private audience with Vladimir Putin on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and urged him to stop the war.
The piece describes a man who was enjoying living a quiet life, before finding his “carefully constructed web” come crashing down with his old associate’s brutal attack on a neighbor.
Putin did not listen to Abramovich before things started, but it’s claimed that that’s where his role as a mediator in peace talks was established.
He’s now really in the thick of things and has gone years with barely a new photo of Roman finding the internet, we’re now seeing him splashed across front pages.
While his interests may be selfish, there can be no denying that he is trying to end the conflict. Whether he will be able to make any difference is another question.
