Roman Abramovich accepted a Ukrainian request to help negotiate an end to the Russian offensive.
Washington:
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian negotiators were the targets of a suspected poison attack, possibly by Moscow hardliners seeking to sabotage peace talks, The Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter on Monday.
The billionaire businessman, recently slapped with sanctions by Western nations to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine, is reportedly closing in on Kyiv, Moscow and other negotiating sites.
After a meeting in Ukraine’s capital, Abramovich and at least two senior Ukrainian negotiators developed symptoms including red eyes, painful watery eyes, and peeling skin on their faces and hands, according to US newspaper sources.
The Journal said it was not clear who might have launched the apparent attack, but that hardliners targeted in Moscow sought to disrupt ongoing talks to end the war.
People said the condition of Abramovich and the other interlocutors had improved and there was no threat to their lives.
“It wasn’t an intention to kill, it was just a warning,” Kristo Grozev, an investigator for the open-source collective Bellingcat, said in the Journal after studying the incident.
Grozev, who after an investigation determined that Kremlin agents poisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny with a nerve agent in 2020, saw images of the effects of the apparent Abramovich attack, but forensic experts were unable to trace the poison. No sample could be collected in time. Paper reported.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that his government has received offers of support from Russian businessmen including Abramovich, who owns and is seeking to sell Chelsea football club and has longstanding ties to Putin.
Zelensky told reporters the businessmen had said they wanted to “do something” and “somehow help” to reduce Russia’s military attack on Ukraine, which has killed thousands.
Zelensky did not mention a suspected poisoning, and according to the Journal the presidential spokesman had no knowledge of such an attack.
Abramovich’s aides have not responded to AFP’s request for comment about the alleged poisoning.
Western countries, including the United States and the European Union, have imposed unprecedented sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, including adding oligarchs and other individuals close to Putin on sanctions lists.
Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that Zelensky asked US President Joe Biden to hold off on approving Abramovich, arguing that the Russian billionaire could play a role in negotiating a peace deal with Moscow.
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