Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian peace negotiators suffered symptoms of suspected poisoning after meeting in Kyiv earlier this month, people familiar with the matter said.
After the meeting in the Ukrainian capital, Mr. Abramovich, who shuttled between Moscow, Lviv and other negotiating locations, as well as at least two senior members of the Ukrainian team, developed symptoms including red eyes, constant and painful tears and peeling skin on their faces and hands, people said .
They blamed the alleged attack on hardliners in Moscow who they say wanted to sabotage talks to end the war. A person close to Mr Abramovich said it was not clear who targeted the group.
Mr Abramovich and Ukrainian negotiators, which include Crimean Tatar lawmaker Rustem Umerov, have since improved and their lives are not in danger, people said. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who met with Mr. Abramovich, is unaffected, they said. Mr Zelensky’s spokesman said he had no information about suspected poisoning.
Western experts dealing with the incident said it was difficult to determine whether the symptoms were caused by a chemical or biological agent or by some type of electromagnetic radiation attack, people familiar with the matter said.
After more than a month of war in Ukraine, President Biden and NATO allies have promised a new round of sanctions, more weapons and humanitarian aid. But the question is what else can they do and how effective the Western alliance can be. Photo: Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images
The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suspected poisoning.
The investigation was organized by Christo Grozev, an investigator with the open-source collective Bellingcat, who concluded that a Kremlin team poisoned Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny with a nerve agent in 2020. Mr Grozev said he saw the images of the aftermath of the attack on Mr Abramovich and Ukrainian negotiators, but that timely sampling could not be arranged in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, through which they were traveling, because those people were in a hurry to get to Istanbul to travel.
Too much time had passed before a German forensics team with the necessary know-how could carry out the investigation to track down the suspected poison, he said. “It wasn’t intended to kill, it was just a warning,” Grozev said.
In 2018, Britain blamed Russian intelligence for a nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer who defected to Britain, and his daughter Yulia. Both survived, as did a British police officer who was hospitalized after exposure to the poison. A British woman later died after being accidentally exposed to the nerve agent.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the Skripal poisoning.
Mr Abramovich, who has long-standing ties to President Vladimir Putin, became embroiled in attempts to end the war in Ukraine shortly after Moscow launched the invasion on February 24, people familiar with the matter said.
Its efforts are sometimes in conjunction with, and sometimes parallel to, a separate, official negotiating path between Ukrainian and Russian officials, they said. The meeting in Kyiv where the alleged poisoning took place involved Mr. Abramovich, one of Russia’s richest men, and members of Ukraine’s official negotiating team.
Mr Zelensky has asked President Biden not to impose sanctions on Mr Abramovich, who owns a minority stake in steel company Evraz PLC and has Portuguese citizenship, for his involvement in the negotiations, according to people familiar with the call. Mr Abramovich, who also owns Chelsea football club, has been sanctioned by Britain and the European Union.
Asked about Mr Abramovich in an interview with independent Russian media organizations on Sunday, Mr Zelensky said he would not comment on his talks with Mr Biden. He said Mr Abramovich was originally a member of a subcommittee of Russia’s negotiating team and then tried to help with humanitarian issues, particularly the evacuation of Ukrainian civilians from the besieged city of Mariupol.
Mr. Abramovich was spotted in Belarus in late February as the first official talks between Kyiv and Moscow began, and acted as a back channel for talks with the Kremlin, meeting personally with Mr. Putin about Ukraine, people familiar with the matter say. His role in the talks changes regularly and he has tried to include others, including former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, these people said.
Despite suspected poisoning, Mr Abramovich has decided to remain involved in the peace talks, a person close to him said. In the past week, he traveled to Poland and Ukraine, and traveled to Istanbul on Monday, this person said. People who have seen him lately say he has spent a lot of time mediating between the warring factions. Mr. Abramovich’s late mother was from Ukraine.
The talks have not garnered much traction as the war has reached a stalemate. Russia’s offensive has stalled on several fronts. And Ukraine, meanwhile, lacked the resources to launch a meaningful counterattack to retake occupied territories.
A new round of negotiations is scheduled for Tuesday in Turkey as negotiators discuss both a possible political solution to the war and immediate humanitarian issues such as the evacuation of civilians from bombed cities and prisoner exchanges.
Mr. Zelenskyy has indicated that Ukraine is ready to compromise, saying that it would be ready to maintain a neutral status if it receives binding security guarantees from both the West and Moscow. He has ruled out Moscow’s demand to talk about the country’s demilitarization. Any deal with Russia would have to be confirmed by a popular referendum, which will be held after all Russian forces have withdrawn to the positions they held before February 24, he told Russian media on Sunday.
While the Kremlin says it is interested in a negotiated solution, hosts of popular talk shows on Russian state television in recent days said any deal with Mr Zelenskyy would be a humiliation for Russia and said Ukraine should be taken over by Russia’s state.
write to Yaroslav Trofimov at [email protected] and Max Colchester at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8