Roman Abramovich and two Ukraine peace negotiators 'suffered a suspected POISONING that caused the skin to peel off their faces after attending talks this month': Ex Chelsea boss also 'lost his sight for hours and was hospitalised in Turkey'
- Roman Abramovich suffered a suspected poisoning on March 3 after attending peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Kyiv
- Abramovich, another Russian entrepreneur and Ukrainian MP Rustem Umerov all developed symptoms consistent with poisoning by chemical weapons
- They all developed symptoms including red eyes and peeling of skin on faces
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By RACHAEL BUNYAN FOR MAILONLINE-
Roman Abramovich has suffered a suspected poisoning along with Ukraine peace negotiators earlier this month that caused the skin to peel off their faces and temporary blindless, sources said.
The Chelsea FC owner was reportedly poisoned just weeks ago after a meeting in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv whilst he acted as a 'peacemaker' in the Russian war in Ukraine, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Following the meeting in Kyiv, Abramovich 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, sources told the newspaper.
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.
Analysts at investigative news site Bellingcat confirmed that three members of the delegation - including Abramovich - attending the peace talks between Ukraine and Russia on 3 March experienced 'symptoms consistent with poisoning with chemical weapons'.
Meanwhile, Shaun Walker of the Guardian said: 'A source with direct knowledge has just confirmed to me the WSJ/Bellingcat reports that Abramovich suffered symptoms of poisoning. ''Roman lost his sight for several hours'' and was treated in Turkey, the source said'.
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'.
A representative for Abramovich confirmed to the BBC that the oligarch had suffered the reported symptoms but refused to give any further details.
Roman Abramovich suffered a suspected poisoning on March 3 after attending peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Kyiv (Abramovich pictured 2015)
Roman Abramovich has suffered a suspected poisoning along with Ukraine peace negotiators earlier this month. Pictured: Abramovich sits in a VIP lounge before a jet linked to him took off for Istanbul from Ben Gurion international airport in Lod near Tel Aviv, Israel, on March 14
Abramovich, another Russian entrepreneur and Ukrainian MP Rustem Umerov (pictured) had been taking part in the negotiations, with the talks lasting until about 10 pm, investigative news site Bellingcat said
The Chelsea FC owner was reportedly poisoned just weeks ago after a meeting in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv whilst he acted as a a 'peacemaker' in the Russian war in Ukraine. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin
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 4 March - 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 weapon 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.
Bellingcat investigator Christo Grozev, who was part of the team that concluded the Kremlin had poisoned Russian politician Alexei Navalny with a nerve agent in 2020, said he had seen the effects of the poisoning on Abramovich and the other negotiators.
'It was not intended to kill, it was just a warning,' Grozev said.
Roman Abramovich (left) and producer Alexander Rodnyanski (right) attend a RuArts Foundation cocktail party in Sochi, Russia, in 2017
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.
Abramovich is pictured left with Putin at a meeting with top businessman in Sochi in 2016
Abramovich's luxury lifestyle is being squeezed by EU and UK sanctions - and now the US has moved to prevent his Gulfstream plane from making international flights
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.
Salisbury, Navalny and Litvinenko: The Kremlin's links to previous poisonings
Sergei and Yulia Skripal
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia (Pictured) were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury city centre last year after being poisoned by the nerve agent which had been sprayed on the house's doorknob
Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia were both found slumped on a bench in the city centre in March 2018 after the military-grade chemical Novichok was sprayed on the house's front door handle.
The attack seriously injured police officer Nick Bailey and Salisbury resident Charlie Rowley, whose partner, Dawn Sturgess, 44, died after she found a perfume bottle containing Novichok and sprayed it on her wrist.
The suspected assassins – Russian intelligence officers Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin – were caught on CCTV as they travelled from Moscow to the Wiltshire cathedral city.
A third suspect, senior Russian agent Denis Sergeev, was believed to be the on-the-ground commander. All three fled back to Russia after their failed murder attempt.
Alexei Navalny
Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a military grade nerve agent
Navalny fell ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow in August last year with suspected novichok poisoning.
Local health chiefs and doctors claimed they found no evidence of novichok in Navalny's blood, and denied he had been poisoned.
But there were also claims that the hospital was full of agents of the security service FSB, which was later accused of poisoning Navalny.
He was then airlifted to Germany, where doctors concluded he had been poisoned with a military grade nerve agent.
While being treated in Berlin, Navalny was put into a coma. He came out of it on September 7, 2020, and once he had recovered, decided to return to Russia on January 17, 2021 despite knowing he would be arrested.
His poisoning and arrest sparked widespread condemnation abroad as well as sanctions from Western capitals.
Alexander Litvinenko
The last photo taken of poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko alive, in which he is seen lying gaunt in a hospital bed
Litvinenko, a prominent critic of the Kremlin, died aged 43 in London after drinking green tea laced with Polonium 210 at the plush Millennium Hotel in Mayfair.
He died in intensive care on November 23, 2006, more than three weeks after the initial poisoning and three days after the now-infamous photo of him lying in bed without hair was released to the media.
Britain has long blamed the attack on Russia, saying he was poisoned by Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun.
Russia was ordered to pay £105,000 in damages to Alexander Litvinenko's widow after European judges ruled the state is responsible for his 2006 murder in September last year.
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Yushchenko, the former President of Ukraine, believes the Kremlin was behind his poisoning
The former Ukrainian President suffered horrific disfigurement after he was fed dioxin, a chemical found in the herbicide Agent Orange, while eating dinner with the head of Ukraine's security service in 2004.
The pro-European Yushchenko was standing against pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych and was a leading figure in the so-called Orange Revolution at the time. He believes the Kremlin was behind his poisoning.
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