Billionaire and former owner of Chelsea Football Club Roman Abramovich transferred a secret stake in a Russian media giant to two of Vladimir Putin‘s close friends, according to leaked documents seen by investigative journalists.
The report, based on leaked documents, states that the $40million deal in 2010 (£26m at the time) is the ‘clearest paper trail yet’ linking Abramovich, 57, and the Russian president financially.
Close ties between the pair have long been reported. Abramovich is understood to be the one who recommended Putin to Boris Yeltsin as the man to succeed him, which he did in 1999. They are said to have been allies since.
But the Russian oligarch, who made much of his $9 billion fortune from formerly state-owned assets in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, has – through his London-based lawyers – long denied any financial relationship with Putin and his Kremlin regime in Moscow.
With the outbreak of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February…