Roman Abramovich attends peace talks in Turkey as minister warns not to eat or drink at meeting

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Russia has announced it will ‘radically reduce’ military activity outside Kyiv and Chernihiv after the latest round of negotiations in Turkey today.

Deputy defence minister Alexander Fomin announced the major step to ‘increase mutual trust’ in talks, sparking hope that the Kremlin will scale back its devastating assaults against its neighbour and secure a peace deal. 

Putin’s forces have been pushed back from the Kyiv area in recent days while Chernihiv has been targeted with constant artillery fire and air strikes.

Meanwhile Ukraine said today’s peace talks have paved the way for a face-to-face meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.

A spokesman for Kyiv’s delegation said they proposed adopting neutral status in exchange for security guarantees, meaning they would not join military alliances or host military bases.

The proposals would also include a 15-year consultation period on the status of annexed Crimea and could come into force only in the event of a complete ceasefire, the negotiators told reporters in Istanbul after the first negotiations in nearly three weeks.

The talks took place at the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul this morning, and Abramovich was present as an unofficial mediator just a day after it was revealed he was poisoned at a previous meeting, along with two Ukrainian officials. 

The Chelsea owner was left temporarily blind after eating chocolate and drinking water during negotiations in Kyiv earlier this month with Ukrainian MP Rustem Umerov, who is also present in Turkey today, and another unnamed diplomat. 

The Kremlin said Abramovich is not an official member of their delegation as they also rubbished the poisoning claims, dismissing them as part of the ‘information war’ despite the businessman’s spokesperson confirming he suffered symptoms. 

Ukrainian officials were warned not to eat, drink or even touch anything during today’s negotiations, and delegates were given bottled water with glasses covered with paper tops.  

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba warned: ‘I advise anyone going for negotiations with Russia not to eat or drink any thing, (and) preferably avoid touching surfaces.’

A Ukrainian reporter said the start of today’s meeting was ‘a cold welcome, no handshake’. 

Dmitry Peskov said: ‘Roman Abramovich is involved in enabling certain contacts between the Russian and Ukrainian sides.

‘He is not an official member of the delegation… but nevertheless he is also present today in Istanbul from our side.

‘In order to carry out contacts between the two sides, you need to get approval from both sides, and in the case of Abramovich, this approval is there from both sides.’  

The discussions between Ukrainian and Russian delegations come as the fighting appeared to be at a stalemate, with the two sides trading control of a town in the east and a suburb of the capital. 

Ahead of the talks in Istanbul, the Ukrainian president said his country is prepared to declare its neutrality, as Moscow has demanded, in comments that might lend momentum to negotiations. 

Zelensky said over the weekend that compromise might be possible over ‘the complex issue of Donbas’, the hotly contested region in the country’s east.

It is unclear how that might be reconciled with his stance that ‘Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are beyond doubt’.

Russia has long demanded that Ukraine drop any hope of joining Nato, which Moscow sees as a threat. 

Zelensky, for his part, has stressed that Ukraine needs security guarantees of its own as part of any deal.

Meanwhile, the lead investigator who exposed the poisoning of Abramovich has said the chemical attack was a warning to the billionaire and others not to betray the Kremlin.

Christo Grozev, lead Russia investigator for the investigative news outlet Bellingcat, said the billionaire oligarch was not supposed to die in the poisoning which also affected two Ukrainian negotiators.

He told Times Radio: ‘The dosage was not high enough to kill any of the three, the most likely target would have been Abramovich. And it kind of makes sense. 

‘I mean, he volunteered to play… this role of (an) honest broker, but other oligarchs had… declared certain independence from the Kremlin position and criticise(d) the war.

‘So it could well be seen as a warning sign to them to not join the ranks of those who dissent, and to not be too much of an honest broker.’

A source close to Volodymyr Zelensky told The Financial Times: ‘People became totally blind… the next day.

‘We did not identify the substance. No idea who was behind [the attack] but it looks like Roman was the main target.’

Another said it was ‘definitely not Novichok’, adding: ‘They couldn’t work out who did it – the Ukrainians or the Russians.’ 

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said the poisoning attempt during peace talks in Kyiv on March 3 was ‘very concerning’. 

It said the UK will ‘continue to assist’ by implementing tough sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime as well as by providing defensive and humanitarian support to put Ukraine ‘in the strongest possible negotiating position’. 

A representative for Abramovich confirmed yesterday the oligarch had suffered the reported symptoms after eating chocolate and drinking water but refused to give any further details. 

The Chelsea owner as well as two senior members of the Ukrainian team developed symptoms that included red eyes, painful streaming eyes as well as peeling skin on their faces and hands.

Abramovich, who accepted a Ukrainian request to help negotiate an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, also ‘went blind for several hours’ and was treated at a hospital in Turkey, a source told The Guardian.

Sources told the PA news agency Mr Abramovich had now recovered and was continuing to try to help with the negotiations.

It is understood the oligarch had been involved in talks about securing humanitarian corridors to allow Ukrainians to leave as well as bringing other countries to the negotiating table.

The WSJ reported it was believed the suspected attack was orchestrated by hardliners in Russia who wanted to sabotage the talks.

Asked about the allegations on BBC Newsnight, Sergiy Petukhov, the former deputy minister of justice of Ukraine, said: ‘It’s really hard to make any conclusions out of (the) information that we have.

‘Remember previously one of the Ukrainian negotiators was murdered in Kyiv under unknown circumstances.’

He said the situation makes ‘the atmosphere of the negotiations very tense and nervous, definitely not contributing to success’.

‘I think we will have to wait until further information comes out to be able to reach a conclusion (on) whether it was an intentional attack on the negotiation process or something else that just happened,’ he added.

Abramovich, another Russian entrepreneur and Ukrainian MP Rustem Umerov had been taking part in the negotiations, with the talks lasting until about 10pm according to Bellingcat.

The investigative news site said it had known about the suspected poisoning for some time but chose not to publicise the information ‘due to concern about the safety of the victims’. 

The revelation comes just days after Abramovich reportedly travelled to Poland to act as a negotiator between Putin and US President Joe Biden, who visited the Polish town of Rzeszow mere miles from the Ukrainian border last week.

Asked about the suspected poisoning, Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak only said: ‘There is a lot of speculation, various conspiracy theories’.  

Umerov meanwhile urged people not to trust ‘unverified information’. 

The three members of the delegation left the talks on 3 March to an apartment in Kyiv later that night. 

Whilst there, they were all suffering from eye and skin inflammation and piercing pain in their eyes until the next morning. The three men had consumed only chocolate and water in the hours before the symptoms appeared.

A fourth member of the team who also consumed the same food and water did not experience symptoms.

The next day – on March 4 – Abramovich, Umerov and the other negotiator drove from Kyiv to the Ukrainian city of Lviv whilst on their way to Poland, still experiencing symptoms.

They then moved on to Istanbul, where they are believed to have received treatment before continuing negotiations.

Chemical weapons specialists and a Bellingcat investigator carried out examinations of the three men and concluded the symptoms are ‘most likely the result of intentional poisoning with an undefined chemical weapon’.   

The symptoms experienced by Abramovich and the two other negotiators subsided by the end of the following week.

The Kremlin acknowledged for the first time last week that Abramovich was officially involved in early peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, but spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted on Thursday the oligarch was no longer part of the negotiation team.

‘He did take part at the initial stage,’ Peskov said Thursday. ‘Now the negotiations are between the two teams, the Russians and Ukrainians.’ 

Chemical weapons experts said the dosage and type of toxic used in the March 3 attack was ‘likely insufficient to cause life-threatening damage’ and instead intended ‘to scare the victims as opposed to cause permanent damage’. 

Sources told WSJ they blamed the suspected poisoning attack on hard-liners in Moscow who wanted to ruin talks to end the war. The victims meanwhile said they were not aware of who would have an interest in the attack.  

The Chelsea FC owner has reportedly been jetting between Istanbul, Moscow and Kyiv to relay messages between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.

But when handed a note from the Ukrainian president outlining peace terms, the Russian despot reportedly erupted with fury.

Abramovich has been trying to rescue his reputation after being slapped with sanctions by the UK and EU over his closeness to Putin.

His assets have been frozen across Britain and the Continent and he started a fire sale of London property as well as Chelsea football club.

But his yachts and jets, which are worth hundreds of millions of pounds, remain out of bounds as they dodge sanctioned waters and airspace.

Meanwhile Zelensky reportedly pleaded with President Joe Biden for the US to hold off bringing measures against the oligarch due to his role in negotiations.   

Abramovich left Ataturk airport in Istanbul on a private Hawker 800XP jet last Wednesday, heaving across the Black Sea towards Sochi.

Its flight tracker went dark near the city of Mineralnye Vody, with the plane later popping up leaving Vnukovo airport in Moscow and returning to the Turkish capital.

The oligarch had flown in to meet Putin and hand him a handwritten note by Zelensky outlining Ukraine’s peace terms position.

According to the Times, the Russian president said to the oligarch: ‘Tell him I will thrash them.’

He returned to Istanbul and linked up with Ukrainian politician Rustem Umerov, who is said to be acting as Kyiv’s negotiator.

They met at five-star hotels in the Turkish capital, having been set up by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin.

Abramovich and Umerov have visited the Ukrainian President in war-torn Kyiv after travelling on private jets routed through Warsaw, Poland.

The businessman has been flying on one owned by a Turkish firm due to his being under EU sanctions.

He is one of at least 20 oligarchs in Turkey as they toe the line between Putin and Western restrictions.

He has two of his yachts moored in Bodrum on the south west coast despite the presence of Ukrainian protesters.

Turkey has not sanctioned Abramovich and appears to have allowed him to help in the negotiations surrounding the war.

Insiders said he was determined to draw the war to an end after seeing the horrors in Ukraine, where his mother Irina was born.

Meanwhile another set of negotiations in Turkey were being held between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers.

Sergey Lavrov and Dmytro Kuleba met in Antalya on March 10, with Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu overseeing the chat that ultimately failed.

He also met with ex-German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to try to broker peace with Putin earlier this month.

They are believed to have met at one of the Russian capital’s luxury hotels where the former premier was staying, according to multiple sources.

The billionaire oligarch entered and left via a side door to avoid being spotted, according to German newspaper Bild.

The meeting was believed to have been in the same suite where Schröder’s wife, Soyeon Schröder-Kim, prayed for peace with the Kremlin on Instagram.

The talks lasted ‘several hours’  and later in the evening Schröder is said to have met with Putin at the Kremlin.

No further details were released but Reuters said an insider told them the oligarch wanted to find a way to stop the conflict.

Abramovich who is a Russian–Portuguese–Israeli billionaire, was close to the Kremlin during the reign of Boris Yeltsin.

He is said to have been the first person to recommend Putin to Yeltsin as his replacement.

During Putin’s time in power, Abramovich was the governor of the Chukchi Autonomous Okrug for eight years.

After Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the UK imposed sanctions on Abramovich, who has been the owner of Chelsea for almost 20 years since buying the club in 2004.

The west London team is now for sale and is currently under the hammer in a bidding process.

Abramovich has pledged to write off Chelsea’s £1.5billion debt and the bidding frenzy for the club could see the eventual deal hit £3billion.

The Russian billionaire made his fortune buying up discounted state assets after the collapse of the Soviet Union and owns billions of pounds pf assets in the UK.

In the past month he has been hit by a string of sanctions in the UK and EU due to his close relationship with Putin, and scrambled to divest before the asset freeze hit.

It comes as Boris Johnson pledged to ‘co-ordinate closely’ with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in the days ahead, reiterating the UK’s commitment to strengthening economic pressure on Moscow.

Meanwhile, British defence intelligence analysts warned more than 1,000 Russian mercenaries are expected to deploy to eastern Ukraine to undertake combat operations.

In an intelligence update on Twitter, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Russia had ‘highly likely been forced to reprioritise’ personnel from the paramilitary Wagner Group, at the expense of operations in Africa and Syria, ‘due to heavy losses and a largely stalled invasion’.

The Wagner Group, seen as Mr Putin’s private army, was among the latest tranche of entities sanctioned by the UK Government over the Russian invasion last week. 

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Mr Putin’s forces were abducting Ukrainian politicians, activists and journalists as Russia failed to meet its military objectives.

She condemned the ‘abhorrent tactic’ following work by Ukrainian human rights group ZMINA, which claimed to have identified dozens of individuals who had been abducted, with thousands more deported to Russia.

Ms Truss said Mr Putin was resorting to ‘desperate measures’.

‘Putin continues to use abhorrent tactics against the Ukrainian people, including abducting innocent civilians,’ she said.

‘He is not achieving his objectives and is resorting to desperate measures. Putin must fail in Ukraine.’

Ms Truss, in a statement to the House of Commons, later told MPs: ‘We know that Putin is not serious about talks, he is still wantonly bombing innocent citizens across Ukraine and that is why we need to do more to ensure that he loses and we force him to think again.

‘We must not just stop Putin in Ukraine but we must also look to the long term. We need to ensure that any future talks don’t end up selling Ukraine out or repeating the mistakes of the past.’

In their call on Monday, No 10 said Mr Zelensky provided Mr Johnson with an update on negotiations, adding that ‘the two leaders agreed to co-ordinate closely in the days ahead’.

The Ukrainian president has signalled he is prepared to offer a series of concessions to Russia to end the fighting.

Ukraine could declare neutrality and offer guarantees about its non-nuclear status as part of a peace deal, Mr Zelensky suggested, but he stressed the desire to ensure the country’s ‘territorial integrity’.