Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Roman Abramovich has played an important role alongside Putin. The Russian had initially decided to take a step aside because he participated in the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations. But a week ago, the news broke: Abramovich was putting Chelsea up for sale. Blacklisted by the English government, Abramovich was also blacklisted by the European Union, along with eleven other Russian oligarchs.
In recent days, the BBC investigated the Russian oligarch and came to the conclusion, with several evidences, that part of his fortune comes from corrupt deals. First, the Chelsea owner allegedly made billions following buying an oil company from the Russian government in a rigged auction in 1995, according to British state media. Abramovich bought Sibneft for $250 million (€227,600,000) before selling it back to the Russian government in 2005 for the modest sum of $13 billion (€11.8 billion)
In recent days, a confidential source transmitted a document to the program Panorama on the BBC. According to this document, Abramovich defrauded the Russian government of $2.7 billion as part of Operation Sibneft. Revelations which are not surprising since the Russian billionaire had already been prosecuted in London and had admitted to having made corrupt payments to help take off the Sibneft affair. he described in court how Sibneft’s initial auction was rigged.
To seek new evidence, the BBC program interviewed Yuri Skuratov, a former public prosecutor, who had investigated the operation in the 1990s. He had tried to shed light on the whole affair but President Yeltsin would have personally prevented it and the case was closed without further action. Prosecutor General Mr Skuratov was subsequently sacked following a sex tape was published in 1999. According to him, the Sibneft case also involved members of Boris Yeltsin’s family.
Ties with the Russian presidency that he kept following Vladimir Putin came to power. In 2002, Abramovich formed a partnership to buy Slavneft, a Russian oil company. The offer made was accepted when a Chinese company offered twice as much. In reality, the passage of the Slavneft company into Chinese hands would have been a disaster for some influential Russian politicians sitting in the Kremlin. According to the document received by the BBC, one of the Chinese representatives was kidnapped at Moscow airport and released only following agreeing to withdraw his offer. The BBC specifies, however, that it has no proof of the involvement of Roman Abramovich in this kidnapping and even that he was made aware of it.
Roman Abramovich’s lawyers told the BBC that the abduction allegations “were absolutely unfounded”. They explain that the accusations of corruption in the Sibneft and Slavneft cases are false, also denying that their client was protected by Boris Yeltsin.
