Statement from Roman Abramovich | Hacker News Reader

Statement from Roman Abramovich

chelseafc.com

128 pointshaunter148 comments

The guy is giving away £3 billion+ to charity and writing off a £1.5 billion loan, and yet the whole thread is looking for holes in the short statement.

Nice gesture I say as he didn’t start the war.

Also, while he grew up in Russia and made his fortune there, he's lived in the West for almost 20 years now. The amount of influence he has over war-peace decisions in Russia is zero. He's not Timchenko or Rotenberg.

From an article on Sky News:

>It is not clear if his reference to "all victims" means just Ukrainians, or Russians as well.

I don't want to be cynical but this could be donated to "victims" in Russia. The Aggressor. Also the elephant in the room is why does he have 30 days to sell assets before sanctions. It should be frozen immediately.

A common person in Russia isn't the aggressor. That's like blaming entire western population for the shit their government does. Russian ruble has tanked significantly, which means things in Russia are gonna cost way more for an average person.

Who else to blame? The Russian people allows this man to be their leader

Reminds of Osama bin Laden's Letter to America:

> The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq. These tax dollars are given to Israel for it to continue to attack us and penetrate our lands. So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones who oversee the expenditure of these monies in the way they wish, through their elected candidates.

Blaming ordinary people of Russian for the actions of the Putin regime is the same.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver

True: One man's terrorism is another man's war on terror. As a matter of fact, this kind of self-referentialness is why political debates go to shit.

So all Americans are to be blamed for Iraq, Libya et all right. Add in UK as well for good measure. Heck majority of Americans wanted Hilary to be president in 2016 after she voted for a war that was based on a lie. Look where Iraq is right now as a country.

No, but Americans did have to the face the consequences of the war including paying for it. Likewise ordinary Russians will pay for this war.

He admitted under oath in court that he paid billions of dollars of bribes to government officials and gangsters to acquire and protect his assets.

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/chelsea-owner-ad...

That's fair, and we should judge him for it. Doesn't mean we should blame him for the war in Ukraine.

Well blame is a tricky word, and I'm sure he did not personally authorize the attack or had any say in it, but it is quite indisputable that he has been a huge factor in propping up Putin for the last 20+ years.

Is it? My understanding is that he completely peaced out of Russia shortly after Putin came to power and has been uninvolved in Russian affairs for ~15 years.

Putin literally became president under his recommendation to Yeltsin. When Putin was warring with the oligarch class and billionaires like Berezovsky, Gusinsky, and Khodorkovsky were imprisoned/killed and their assets seized, Abramovich kept hold of his wealth and influence. He was the one who hand picked Medvedev as Putin's successor in 2008. There are regular articles in the news about his meetings with Putin and exchange of lavish gifts. They are said to still maintain a close friendship.

It's hilarious that people are buying his PR transformation into some kind of philanthropist. Guy was and is rotten to the core.

Might as well say entire Brits prop teflon PM to kill Libyans and Syrians. Let's be honest here, you just don't assign guilt simply by association. Hitler did that. We all are better than that.

and if I had been born into his circumstances, perhaps I might have done the same. Living in a time/place where bribery is not necessary to get ahead is a historically rare privilege.

He's always been a strong supporter of Putin, and is selling his property only because there was serious risk that it would have been seized. He, among other billionaires, contributed to keep Putin in power, so albeit not directly involved, he has his share of responsibilities.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-60506563

> Nice gesture I say as he didn’t start the war.

At this point anybody close to Putin might have a presumption of guilt. It's not good to support decades of growing autocracy, benefit from it and when it started to crumble in agony, step aside and say "I didn't do this last step".

> It's not good to support decades of growing autocracy, benefit from it.

It is almost as if the Western democracies and companies didn't enrich the Russian government by purchasing energy from them...

Oh, they absolutely did. And the list of faults is unfortunately growing. However we're not in a position of choosing how exactly this particular set of problems will be solved; we have to get what we can sometimes.

Witch hunts. A concept as old as cave men.

Or something else, which just happens to be - for some people - similar to witch hunt. If, for example, an action needed to be done for quite some time, and then suddenly is done, somebody can ask why it's done, since it wasn't done before. And the reason is - some other events triggered the action, not that the action suddenly became necessary while it wasn't before. It's just similar to witch hunt, but not the witch hunt by itself.

How would you distinguish witch hunt from a legitimate action?

At this point, I believe a lot of "economic warfare" the West is engaging in is just optics, populist measures, just for the memes, and very hypocritical and shallow, especially given that in a post globalised World, almost every other major business is connected to other major businesses.

Diplomacy is the need of the hour. The US/NATO really botched this, or purposefully enraged Russia, for avoidable reasons. Ukraine is facing the brunt, just like Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and Yemen continue to. The warfare (both on-ground and the economic one) is so destructive that I fail to understand people who prefer it, at all, over any number of available compromises.

I have lived through war, sanctions, and rioting all under the pretense of freedom, nationalism, pride, religion, democracy, righteousness and what not, and I don't prefer it one bit.

Well, he's got 7 billion and change left so I don't think he's going to be crying all that much about it.

Half your net-worth is quite a significant chunk.

Please. Half of infinity is still infinity.

GP's argument assumes

>he's got 7 billion and change left

So, I don't get you point, honestly.

That Roman’s wealth is (still) effectively infinite, I thought OP’s point was very clear.

Humans only need a couple of million to live happily ever after. Anything more than that is....well...."infinite".

He's got 7 billion left. That tells me he did not in any way shape or form bleed. He suffered nothing. Hence, no sacrifice was made. He still can live prosperously until forever.

He is giving money to charity, but through what means did he acquire this money? The fact that the charities have to exist in the first place is a huge failure of global economy and thanks in large part to the oligarch class for it.

> The guy is giving away £3 billion+ to charity and writing off a £1.5 billion loan

Don't forget that all his wealth he obtained through stealing and corruption in the early days of russian robber capitalism (for a while he was a close associate of notorious Boris Berezovsky). Abramovitch is also rumored to be one of the putin's "purses" [0].

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/21/is-abramovich-...

>Moreover, I have instructed my team to set up a charitable foundation where all net proceeds from the sale will be donated. The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine.

That's quite the statement coming from one of Russia's biggest oligarch.

How likely is it to happen?

I think it implies Ukrainian and Russian (and other!) people. It's very much not taking a stance and if anything agreeing that the war has to be done, people will unfortunately be hurt, and he plans on helping them all. But still supports the invasion.

At least he calls it a war. Something the state media in .ru is instructed not to do.

Calling it a war is already a departure from Russia's "special military operation" messaging.

He might be referring to the """Ukraine nazi government war on the independent people's republics in the Donbas region"""

Fair point.

  sed -e 's;"special military operation";"special" military operation;'

Transported by short bus

The money could all be payed to families of dead Russian soldiers and still be considered going to "victims of the war in Ukraine"

Plus, I don't think Abramovich really cares of any investigative journalist finds this never came true

Considered by whom?

By me for one. And by whomever has that weariness of the statement “benefit of all victims”.

I don't think it matters if the money pays death benefits to Russian soldiers, they're also being tragically sent to die for an evil purpose. I see them as victims of Putin. Nobody should have to die for an autocrat's ego.

Chelsea FC is not profitable, so what proceeds can possibly be donated? Even after winning the Champions League they lost money.

income != valuation

They don't need to be profitable to be worth a lot of money. His asking price is 3B GBP.

This is literally a forum made for startups. Businesses that may lose money but are worth a lot. Does that ring a bell?

Abramovich bought a club for £140m, invested around £1.5 billion in it, and now it’s worth twice that. It’s worth is based on what a prospective buyer will pay, not a multiple of earnings.

Nonetheless, if you remove the sugardaddy, their model hasn't ever been a sustainable business. Chelsea clearly improved as a club after Roman bought the team (unlike United or Arsenal), so I'm not discounting that, but basically all major league sports teams in the (global) west have increased massively in value the last 10-15 years - how much of that is real value and how much is speculative is still up in the air.

Things can be valued as assets based on the present value of their future cash flows (like companies) or by their desirability and rarity (like a Lambo).

The argument you are making is equivalent to 'now that he won't pay for the gas, who will buy the Lambo?'

I'm definitely arguing that the Lambo is less valuable without gas, and that the number of people with a comparable amount of gas to pour on a soccer club is a very limited group. It's unclear what the actual value is, since some major portion of the value is based on it's desirability/rarity, which is a speculative quality - as a business, Chelsea doesn't seem to have the finances of a top 4 club.

Sure. A Lamborghini would be worth more if gas was free and there aren’t that many people who can afford gas for a lambo, but you’re way overestimating global inequality. Plenty of people could afford Chelsea.

That doesn't matter, someone will pay it. They won't struggly to find a buyer.

Owning one of the greatest teams in the world in the most fashionable part of one of the world's major city is basically just worth it as a vanity asset to a certain kind of billionaire.

Startups are valued for their exponential growth.

Is FC going to double next year? And the year after?

I can think in a few solid reasons explaining why a very rich could want to keep a non profitable company in a foreign country. Making valuable personal contacts for example. Some companies aim to earn money. The purpose of other is to burn money at a fast pace when needed. Maybe to support the first ones.

The interesting part in this is not that will sell a club, is that will announced that will sell all his properties in UK, in a context of big economic sanctions.

> I can think in a few solid reasons explaining why a very rich could want to keep a non profitable company in a foreign country.

You didn't list the most popular reason: Money laundering.

It can't certainly be for all victims, since they will be in the millions if we count displaced, destroyed property, refugees etc. So it will remain to be seen who really will benefit. I think it is stealthy language

He even went as far as calling it a war. That's considered borderline treason in Russia by now.

15 years in prison if the new law passes, right?

If he's lucky.

If he's unlucky, it's nerve poison.

he seems to be banking on the new leader of the "Polish Eastern Territories" granting amnesty to oligarchs for their help in securing the Siberian Fronts

He’s gambling on Putin losing. Which seems an outside bet, but then he probably has information we don’t.

Oh he's Putin's friend or otherwise "owed", and his words will not be found offensive, but only because it's him.

"Liberation mission" is Vladimir's preferred newspeak.

Colbert had a bit with Putin calling it Peace Keeping. He's keeping this piece of Ukraine and this piece as well.

Maybe, and I'm guessing, he is like many Russians and hoping for an overhaul of their Putin-and-cronies government.

Abramovich was part of the inner circle of cronies who installed Putin as president in the first place.

Buyer’s remorse is a thing.

"net proceeds" being the key phrase. This doesn't sound like he's donating all the money from the sale. It sounds like if he sells it for more than he originally paid for it, that extra will be donated.

That's what "net" means, yes.

It's soccer, so it could be the "net proceeds to bulge when Keppa gets beat"

He bought it in 2003 for 140 million pounds. The team is valued between 3 and 4 billion now.

Plus he's said he'll write off the ~£1.5 billion he's loaned to the team. That's a pretty big financial hit.

To put this in perspective: how many million pounds are you pledging?

(I'd be surprised if arms dealers base their pricing off your net worth)

That's right. I would remain skeptical of anyone with ill-gotten gains who promises future generosity.

.. I'm gonna pay you guys back, let me just sell this stuff and skip town for a holiday while I work this out..

I guess that by “all victims of the war” he means Russians and not Ukrainians.

This statement was measured and weighted dozens of times by the army of lawyers and advisers.

There is NOTHING sincere in it.

You don't have to buy this BS.

Relevant context: Abramovich answered a call from Ukraine to "mediate" in the initial round of talks between Russia and Ukraine.

Previously, he's spent the last couple of decades acquiring assets, passports and friends in Western countries, so whilst there's definitely a lot of self-interest in his actions (he's avoided the main wave of sanctions) I imagine the war came as a massive shock to him and was the very last thing he wanted to happen. He has Ukranian ancestors and a daughter being outspokenly anti-Putin on social media. But he also spent time in Russian politics and was directly involved in Putin's rise to power.

In that context, the absence of direct criticism of Russia in statements put out by him and the club's press office is also notable. Only if his role in "mediation" turns out to be a significant one can we judge the absence of anything stronger to say on the matter as more than an attempt to reputation launder both sides

>That's quite the statement coming from one of Russia's biggest oligarch.

No, his statement clearly follows and enforces Putin's propaganda narrative of the separation between suffering people of Ukraine whom Russia supposedly came to "liberate" and the supposedly illegitimate "Hunta" government whom Russia is supposedly fighting.

Basically Abramovich managed to buy himself a grace period in England to be able to weasel out without devastating losses (and to save his bottom from the future war crimes trial). The guy in reality is total sh%t and is fully responsible for what happens in Ukraine like the rest of the Putin's oligarchs.

At first it was "this will be put into a trust" as if that solves the problem of the club being owned by an oligarch. Now it's "it will be sold but not fast-tracked and the proceeds given to a foundation."

Why not just transfer it to a foundation along with the debts?

The weasel-wording and slow-rolling gives the appearance of an attempt to evade consequences.

also why does it need a new foundation? A foundation he controls (or controlled by someone he controls) is a cool way to get some money off his books but still control it.

> Why not just transfer it to a foundation along with the debts?

That wouldn’t be a very responsible thing to do.

How are the foundation going to service the debts? How can they prove they have the capital to both run the club and pay Roman back? It wouldn’t be possible. Chelsea runs at a loss which Roman just writes off most years, a foundation can’t do that.

Stalling to avoid outright seizure.

Context for people unfamiliar with football/soccer: Roman Abramovich is a Russian oligarch who grew rich in the 90s by buying state owned companies at rigged auctions. He was close to the previous President Yeltsin and allegedly recommended that Yeltsin appoint Putin as his successor. His relations with Putin have remained cordial with Putin unlike some other oligarchs like Mikhail Khordokovsky, who crossed Putin and lost everything.

Around the same time Abramovich used the proceeds of his dealings in Russia to buy London based football club Chelsea. It was speculated he wanted a productive asset that would be beyond Putin’s reach as well as building up a public profile so he couldn’t be disappeared like Khordokovsky.

In the last 20 years, he has loaned around £1.5 billion of his money to the club because it made losses most of the time he owned it. This despite winning almost all available trophies at least once during that period. Still a sound investment, because the club he bought for £140 million is worth at least £2.5 billion today.

There’s a few interesting things we can infer from this statement where he says he’s selling the club and giving all proceeds to victims of the war in Ukraine

- Abramovich thinks that the war and sanctions are going to last a while. As someone with access to Putin, he must have realised that Putin isn’t planning to back down, and therefore neither is the US and EU. He can’t ride this one out.

- he knows that sanctions are coming for him and most of his US and EU based assets are going to be seized. Might as well say you’re giving them to charity if they’re gone anyway

- he retains some measure of control here. A charitable foundation with some trusted members controlling the money is preferable to control by Her Majesty’s Government.

Ironic that he got the club to avoid seizure by Putin but it got seized in the end anyway.

Thank you for this.

My first reaction was, "He lost it anyway, so why not make it look like a charitable donation that makes him look like one of the good guys?"

Donating all of the proceeds to the victims of what he explicitly calls the war in Ukraine is quite a statement. It's not something one would do if they wanted to remain in Putin's graces.

> Ironic that he got the club to avoid seizure by Putin but it got seized in the end anyway.

What's ironic is the claims Abramovich used Chelsea for sports washing his image. I don't think it is any but speculation.

He's also throwing Putin under the bus, and it looks like he's positioning himself to be a "good" Russian after this is all over. That is both very self-serving and a huge vote of no confidence in Putin.

Called it a war and basically took Ukraine's side. This guy isn't entering Russia anytime soon.

Except, perhaps, as Putin‘s successor?

Was there just a few hours ago https://twitter.com/RUOligarchJets/status/149867860852467712...

This war just makes 0 sense to me.

Are things so horrible in Russia they feel they need to invade and subjugate another country?

I realize you could make the same argument for the US invasion of Afganistan, or Iraq, or many many other idiotic blunders the US political class has made to undermine the US's ability to weigh in on these sorts of situations.

I suppose the difference is that Ukraine is a healthy liberal democracy. But if you ask the people of these countries, I don't know if they would agree there is a difference at all.

Not to get hung up on the hypocrisy of the US position.

I'm more asking what Russia has to gain from this. It felt like we had a healthy trade relationship, and the Russian economy was supporting an educated middle class. What was the point of smashing all of that into pieces and destroying your country's stock market and currency?

The only plausible explanation I've heard (other than Putin is just mentally ill), is that Putin has gotten high on his own supply of propaganda. He truly believes that Ukraine is being run by Nazis, and the US/West are building up to a Russian invasion.

Supposedly during Covid, it's gotten a lot worse due to Putin's extreme isolation tactics. He's been truly surrounded solely by yes men over the past 2 years.

It's a man who ordered the murder of several people via covert-but-clearly-attributable means. In his position, wouldn't you wonder if your tea is polonium-free? You have to get paranoid. The COVID isolation was too much -- just look at the size of that table.

Or maybe he is terminally ill. Just by coincidence, I just read "Red War". Eerily similar story line.

Lots of bad things can happen when one sits alone in bunker. On drugs, with some alcohol, health is declining. Whole world is threatening and isolating. One’s imaginary friends are laughing. It’s time to retaliate and show them all!

This YouTube video titled "Why Russia is invading Ukraine"? [1] is an excellent overview of the history that lead to this moment. tl;dr oil and security

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE

I've found this article interesting https://www.salon.com/2022/02/26/the-ukraine-and-how-we-got-...

It is interesting in the sense that it fails completely to mention the multiple countries Russia has invaded over the past 25 years. It treats NATO's actions as happening completely in a bubble, ignoring Putin's own provocations. It also assumes the countries that have joined NATO aren't deciding to join, but instead being consumed by NATO.

Quite aside from all the injustices, lies and pushes for military action by the U.S. since the end of the Cold War, this article takes a blatantly one-sided view that essentially seems to state "well, you shouldn't have pushed Russia into a corner. The invasion is your fault".

As another reply below says, no mention of Russia's own military aggression with neighbors under Putin's rule or of the fact that if NATO grew closer to the country's borders, it mostly did so with the full willingness of the countries that later joined. Having Russia close to them caused a choice and that choice (fully within their rights as countries) was to become closer with the NATO alliance and western Europe because they found it preferable to possible Russian domination.

The writer describes war and military provocation as a lucrative business and insinuates that western greed motivated the expansion of NATO, but sidesteps that Russia's own military/political moves are often no less motivated by the same things where possible.

sure it is one-sided, but at least it tries to give a plausible explanation rather than all the inflammatory nonsense about putin being a madman hellbent on conquering Europe. I find the general lack of interest in understanding the motivations of the opposition very disappointing

people in this very thread are saying things like "his actions make no sense." Frankly if that's your contribution, maybe realize you're out of your depth? can we at least _try_ to learn from this so we can prevent future war?

> There was a near universal understanding among diplomats and political leaders at the time that any attempt to expand NATO was foolish, an unwarranted provocation against Russia that would obliterate the ties and bonds that happily emerged at the end of the Cold War.

Did they put it on some legal paper?

> This war just makes 0 sense to me.

Killing one third of the population of Chechnya made zero sense. Murdering so many people in Grozny that it's still only a third of the population pre-war makes zero sense. Legalising domestic violence makes zero sense. Mass murder in Syria makes zero sense. Mass killing of gay Chechens makes zero sense. Moving to criminalise homosexuality makes zero sense.

Much of what Putin has done has made zero sense for a very long time.

For context, it's rumored the loans mentioned in the statement are 1-2 Billion pounds.

I mean, it's not rumored - its there in black and white in the club financials:

https://twitter.com/swissramble/status/1476816609851367431?l...

specifically, https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/1476819216909099162

"CFC only have £30m debt in the football club, down from £47m prior year, though it should be noted that the holding company, Fordstam Limited, does have £1.4 bln of debt in the form of an interest-free loan from the owner, theoretically repayable on 18 months notice." This is from FY21, so will have shifted since then, of course.

The only just outcome of this is to seize the proceeds and put it in a trust fund for the Russian people after democracy is restored. This money was stolen from the Russian people and it should go back.

Relevant: How Oligarchs use english football teams to launder money

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/9/investigation-reveals...

It's quite remarkable that he is being allowed to sell Chelsea and his extensive property assets in Londongrad without the proceeds being frozen. Perhaps sanctions will be levied on him after he has finished leisurely sheltering his assets offshore.

The British government and establishment is truly rotten to the core.

For those of us that don't follow Premier League Football, what's the context here?

Oligarch, one of the richest russian businessman, a close ally to Yeltsin and Putin too [0]

Few days ago revealed that because of the current situation he will hand over "the stewardship and care of Chelsea FC" to a foundation, then pretty much everyone on the board stepped away [1]

Then today he announced he will sell the whole club instead

0, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Abramovich#Relationship_...

1, https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/chelsea-foundation-trustees...

Roman Abramovich is a billionaire and the owner of Chelsea. The context is that he is Russian, Russia invaded Ukraine and now there are many calls to boycott Russian companies and block its oligarch from doing business outside of their home country.

Chelsea FC, one of the larger clubs in the Premiership, is owned by Roman Abramovich, one of the Russian oligarchs personally named as a target of sanctions as a result of Russia invading Ukraine. Given that, and the possibility that his assets in the UK will be seized, he's selling his stake in the club.

It would be like if the Dallas Cowboys were actually based in Moscow and the Russians had made it impossible for Jerry Jones to do business there and so he was selling his stake in the team.

Abramovich bought Chelsea for £140million in 2003, they were frequently trophyless but one of the top 5-6 teams. Since then he's loaned them £1.5billion and they've won the premier league and European champions league multiple times. They're the current European and Club World Cup champions.

The football club don't own the football stadium or the rights to the name, they're on a ~180 year lease from the fan-owned trust.

Abramovich also owns some expensive property in London. MPs have been asking questions in parliament about why he hasn't been sanctioned given his close links to Putin, he has been named in the Navalny 35 and the US CAATSA

His first step was to hand over the running of the club to a charitable foundation, but then the charity commission started asking questions about it, and the directors started stepping away.

This BBC report has a bit more context, but to summarise:

- Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea in 2003 for £140M

- In total, Abramovich has loaned the club more than £1.5bn.

- Abramovich, 55, is alleged to have strong ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he has denied.

- Other Russian billionaires have already been the subject of European Union sanctions where their assets have been frozen. The United Kingdom government is yet to sanction Abramovich.

- Billionaire Hansjorg Wyss had told Swiss newspaper Blick he had been offered the chance to buy the west London club.

- Wyss said Abramovich wanted "to get rid of Chelsea quickly" after the threat of sanctions was raised in Parliament.

Chelsea: Roman Abramovich says he plans to sell club: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60585081

A Russian "oligach" who like all Putin oligachs, is a way for Putin to launder money, is in reality also a way for Putin to corrupt and influence via soft power. This Putin money launderer, purchased a London Football Club as a way to project soft russian power to corrupt London's political and business elite.

He's now being effectively forced to sell it.

Chelsea means a lot more to Abramovich than just a toy.

He is one of the few owners who attended most games and refused every approach to sell, despite the UK govt.'s best efforts to obstruct. He took the team from a bunch of nobodies to the most successful Premier League team over the last 20 years. He also invested a lot into future sustenance, leading to arguably the best academy in English football.

He has always had shady roots, but no more than do most oligarchs. Especially ones from non-Western nations.

He was well liked within the club, and disliked outside as all nouveau-riche clubs are. Had good relationships with players and came across as a fan, first as foremost. Also did a lot to remedy some of the anti-semitic history within the club.

He was a major player in facilitating Putin's rise to power and reaped benefits from it. It is often said, that Chelsea was his way of owning a major western investment that Putin could not snatch away at a moment's notice.

Due to hi ties with Putin, Roman has been under intense pressure to sell the club for the last 5 years. He was banned from visiting the club and his ability to inject funding was also hampered significantly. The war was the last nail in the coffin, as the sanctions are forcing him into a position where selling is the only option.

Separating himself from the club saves face for the club and keeps it alive, at the expense of his ability to have any influence on it. Roman may be a less-than-honorable man out in the world, but to Chelsea fans, he was a true blue. It is a difficult dichotomy that Chelsea fans have lived with, but now is the hardest it has ever been.

As far as a russian oil-tycoon(mafia?) oligarchs go, he has acted in good faith during the war and pushed vocally pushed for peace and resolution in the war. That's probably the most he can do without being shot. So, as a Chelsea fan, I'll take it.

In a league in which most billionaire owners use teams as cash cows or long term investments he was different. A classic case of being the best of the worst.

Navalny 35 (aka Navalny's List https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navalny_35) is a group of Russian "human rights abusers, kleptocrats, and corruptioners". The list been created by the Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Abramovich is on the top of the list.

This list is a primary starting focus of Western govs to sanction Putin cronies. I hope Abramovich et al loose everything, not only for this war, but for robbing Russia and its people of their natural resources wealth.

to me, this sounds ominously like Abramovich doesn't think he'll be spending much time in the UK over the next few years. In other words, the situation in Russia has spun out of control even for the oligarchs.

Or, he has given up on Putin and wants to stay in the UK without losing the rest of his wealth.

he'd only had 1 visit to the UK since 2018

Will this allow them to no longer be referred to as Chelski?

Al-Chels is probably going to be the new one.

Of course, only to probably go through all this again when MBS goes on a murderous tear that the Western media can't sweep under the rug.

> The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine.

Whoever formulated this is a PR genius.

The West will read it as "the [Russian aggression] war in Ukraine".

Putin can be made believe it meant "the [Ukrainian nazi government] war in [the Donbas region of] Ukraine".

They don't call it a war in Russia, it's a "special military operation". Calling it a war is perhaps a small step away from Putin for Abramovich, or a mistake.

Ok, you make a good point.

If I were Abramovich, I'd make sure my local hospitals had a supply of antidotes for the common toxins Russians have been known to use, and maybe ones that haven't been just yet.

Which shows that even the rich and powerful are a bunch of fucking cowards

A tear rolls down John Terry's cheek.

For billionaires, philanthropy is simply PR

> For billionaires, philanthropy is simply PR

For the jaded, everything is PR. (For a PR person, everything is PR.) Just because something has PR benefits doesn't mean that's the primary purpose, or that the other benefits are somehow negated.

Right, then why are there so many anonymous huge donations?

“So many” feels like a misdirect using absolute numbers instead of percentages. Of the money and assets donated by billionaires, do you believe more than 10% of it is done so anonymously that no one ever finds out who donated?

exactly lol

If a donation is anonymous we don’t know who it’s from, so it can’t be PR by definition

The positive: he calls it a war - which is a very clear distancing from Moscow.

The more questionable: “all victims”. The correct call would be to clarify that all victims are on the Ukrainian side. That would have made an even clearer message against Putin too.

I don't get why we are so concerned with the purity of his heart.

As I see it it pales near to his gesture and the simple fact that he (a Russian man, a friend of Putin, a person with a lot of personal and business connections to Russia) is doing it. I feel he is already beyond all expectations.

I'm not that concerned about the purity of his actions but I'm concerned that e.g. something is claimed to be a charity and ends up actually being pouring every penny into the russian war machine as e.g. "help to russian veterans".

I'm not saying that's the case, but I'm not exactly going to give an oligarch the benefit of the doubt.

> all victims are on the Ukrainian side.

So, a Russian conscript, beaten into submission and then sent off to fight a war against people who might as well be his cousins. If this conscript is killed in action, is he not a victim?

Could be, but he shouldn't be helped in Russia in that case. They should be given incentives to surrender (as is already the case - but it needs to be extended).

Providing those who return from the war in russia, no matter how poorly informed or treated they were with any support sends the completely wrong signal.

It's creepy to see how quickly people turned on Russian nationals living abroad. What exactly is an "oligarch" anyway? Someone with money? Someone with links to Putin? What kinds of links?

I don't think punishing rich Russians living abroad even with some connection to Putin or the Russian government is helpful. It's likely illegal and the kind of thing that we'll look back upon as excessive.

"Oligarchs" are people who were friends with Boris Yeltsin in the 90s. USSR was collapsing, government upheaval, etc. In this period, the government of Russia sold off state owned enterprises for extremely cheap prices, fractions of a penny on the dollar, to Russian nationals. The state owned enterprises were things like mines, shipping companies, iron smelting, etc. The people who bought these state owned enterprises are "the oligarchs". They have extreme political power in Russia and own or have monopolistic control of huge parts of the Russian economy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_oligarch

It's not a generic slur for "billionaire" its a much more specific term relating implicating them as beneficiaries in a kleptocratic system.

You might not be using it "as a generic slur for billionaire" but lots of other people are.

Further, according to many people, every rich person is a "beneficiary in a kleptocratic system".

Those people clearly do not live in countries in which this is literally true, like Russia and many Eastern European countries.

Otherwise the difference would be blindingly obvious to them.

Think Bezos is filthy rich? Imagine the president selling Library of Congress to him for the nominal price of the building(s) and paper stored.

It's next level.

They aren't going to give your their money if you shill for them, you know.

Not everything comes down to material interest. When you make this comment, you reveal something about yourself.

Russian oligarchs are not "someone with money." They are people that used connections during the fall of the Soviet Union to steal entire industries from the country.

Imagine if in the US we had political upheaval, and Hunter Biden was gifted ExxonMobil or something. That's what the oligarchs did.

It is no more illegal than waging an unprovoked war on a smaller neighboring country. So, fair play.

Yes, this is the attitude I'm criticizing.

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