“Tell him I'll crush him”: Vladimir Putin's response to Roman Abramovich when he brought him a note written by Zelensky

Last Wednesday a private Hawker 800XP aircraft took off in the morning from Istanbul Ataturk Airport, headed east over the Black Sea and entered Russian airspace over Sochi. Soon after, near the city of Mineralnye Vody, he turned off his flight tracker.

That night, the same plane departed from Vnukovo airport, Moscow, and returned to Istanbul. On board was Roman Abramovich, the oligarch and former owner of Chelsea FC who has acted as President Putin's unofficial envoy in talks with Ukraine.

In Moscow, Abramovich met with Putin and handed him a handwritten note by President Zelensky, describing the terms that Ukraine would consider accepting to end the month-long war. Putin's initial response was unequivocal: “Tell him I will crush them.”

Abramovich has been trying to rescue his reputation after the United Kingdom and the European Union imposed sanctions on him for his closeness to Putin.

His assets were frozen in Britain and other parts of the continent, forcing him to forcibly sell his properties in London, as well as the Chelsea football club.

But their yachts and jets, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, remain off-limits while dodging sanctioned waters and airspaces.

It also has the backing of President Zelensky who would have asked his US counterpart Joe Biden not to take action against the Russian oligarch because of his important role as a “peacemaker” in negotiations with Putin.

According to the London Times, following the meeting with the Russian President, Abramovich returned to Istanbul where he met with Ukrainian politician Rustem Umerov, who is said to be acting as Kiev's negotiator.

They met in a five-star hotel in the Turkish capital, established by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin.

The British media reports that they have had several conversations and they seem to be progressing as new face-to-face talks have been set during this week.

Kalin told Hurriyet newspaper last weekend that they were “close to reaching agreement” on key issues about NATO, demilitarization and the protected status of the Russian language.

But there are still differences about the future of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and Donbas, which has been occupied for the most part during the current conflict.

Kalin raised the idea that Moscow would keep Crimea and Donbas under a long-term lease such as that which Britain had on Hong Kong from 1898 to 1997.

Putin is believed to be considering the idea, but his fury over his army's failures and hatred of Zelensky are said to be holding him back.

Abramovich and Umerov visited the Ukrainian president in war-torn Kiev after traveling on private planes en route through Warsaw, Poland.

The businessman has been flying on a plane owned by a Turkish firm because he is under sanctions from the European Union.

He is one of at least 20 Russian oligarchs in Turkey who follow the line between Putin and Western restrictions.

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

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

Sources close to the oligarch told The Times that Abramovich is determined to end the war after seeing the horrors in Ukraine, where his mother Irina was born.

Meanwhile, another round of negotiations is taking place in Turkey between the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine.

Sergey Lavrov and Dmytro Kuleba met in Antalya on March 10, with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, overseeing the conversation that ultimately failed.

Abramovich also met with former German Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroeder to try to negotiate peace with Putin earlier this month.

It is believed that they met in one of the luxury hotels in the Russian capital where the former prime minister was staying, according to multiple sources.

The billionaire oligarch came and went through a side door to avoid being seen, says the German daily Bild.

The meeting is believed to have taken place 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 it became known that Schröder later met Putin in the Kremlin.

No further details were released, but Reuters quoted an anonymous source who assured them that the oligarch wanted to find a way to stop the conflict.

Abramovich, a Russian-Portuguese-Israeli billionaire, was close to the Kremlin during Boris Yeltsin's rule.

He is said to have been the first person to recommend Putin as Yeltsin's replacement to the then president.

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

Following Russia's attack on Ukraine, the UK imposed sanctions on Abramovich, who has owned Chelsea for nearly 20 years since he bought the club in 2004.

The West London team is now on sale and is currently in the bidding process.

Abramovich has pledged to cancel Chelsea's debt of more than $1.9 billion and the bidding frenzy for the club could bring the final deal to over $3.9 billion.

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

In the past month, it was hit by a series of sanctions in the UK and the EU due to its close relationship with Putin, and it rushed to divest before the assets freeze hit.

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