Roman Abramovich has acted as a go-between for Kyiv and Moscow on plans for peace talks, Ukraine’s president has confirmed.
Volodymyr Zelensky said the former owner of Premier League football club Chelsea had met him in Kyiv with a message from Russia and offered to bring a reply directly to Vladimir Putin.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Zelensky said Mr Abramovich “wanted to give me the message that they (Russia) are ready to, that they want to understand what we are ready to do”, and had offered to take a reply “and give it to Putin”.
He added: “I said the question is not about us. You are fighting against us on our territory.
“And I said to him about Donbas, it was the key message, I said we will not leave and we will not go out from our territory. No, we will not give you a victory (in) such (a) way, and you will not get it.”
Mr Zelensky said he told Mr Abramovich to tell the Russian president he was willing to meet “any time from tomorrow” in any location other than Russia or Belarus, and either bilaterally or with US President Donald Trump and European leaders.
He did not say when the meeting took place, but the Financial Times reported the pair had met in late May this year.
Mr Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 over his connections to Mr Putin.
He has previously been involved in negotiations with Moscow and reportedly played a role in arranging a prisoner swap in 2022 that secured the release of five British men captured while fighting for Ukraine.
Mr Zelensky is currently visiting the UK, and is expected to hold a private meeting with the King on Monday.
On Sunday, he met Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street along with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
In a joint statement on Sunday night, the leaders called on Mr Putin to agree “an immediate and complete ceasefire” and condemned Russia’ “large-scale missile and drone attacks” on Ukrainian cities.
On the same day, a Russian drone strike killed three people waiting at a bus stop in south-eastern Ukraine, while a separate attack damaged a storage centre for spent nuclear fuel nine miles from the Chernobyl power plant.
Officials said radiation remains within safe levels.
