Yesterday in Parliament, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed that the £2.5bn proceeds from the sale of the football-team Chelsea, will be transferred to humanitarian aid organisations in Ukraine. Chelsea F.C was sold to a consortium of British investors namely Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital in 2022. Abromovich’s assets in the UK were confiscated due to Abaramovich’s strong links to Vladimir Putin.
Abaramovich built his wealth during the 1990s criminal craze in Russia in which state assets were appropriated by powerful bureaucrats and their corrupt accomplices. Abaramovich began as a small trader from his Moscow apartment, but eventually got into big business with the help of Boris Yeltsin’s ally Boris Berezovsky. With the help of Berezovsky, Abramovich acquired oil assets.
Abramovich was Putin’s close friend and ally and supported him before he became Russian President. Eventually he served as the Governor of Chukotka under Putin’s administration.
The UK’s move to appropriate Abaramovich’s assets comes as the EU remains deadlocked over the use of Russia’s frozen assets at Euroclear in Belgium. Talks are ongoing by the EU Commission to lift the deadlock and fill Ukraine’s budget short-fall with a reparations loan. An agreement was however reached to use frozen Russian assets for compensation claims at the Hague.
Newsroom
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