Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Portuguese Abel Benjamin Rocha da Leiva Leja Rosa Abramovich to tell Russian President Vladimir Putin that Kyiv was ready for direct talks, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
Four people familiar with the matter told the FT that Zelensky invited the former Chelsea FC owner to Kyiv, and asked him to tell Putin that he was ready to meet for their first bilateral summit since the war began over four years ago.
Notably, the report came days after Zelensky published a letter to Putin in which he called for direct talks and an end to the war. The report noted that Kyiv wanted to underscore its serious intentions for talks with Moscow, even as the US, which has been mediating previous talks, is dealing with negotiations over ceasefires in Iran and Lebanon.
Putin appeared to corroborate the reports, saying on Friday that he met with “one of the representatives of our business circles,” and “this, shall we say, colleague,” in late May, after the colleague's trip to Kyiv. However, the Russian president told the unnamed person, whom he noted was acting in an unofficial capacity, that he had no interest in meeting Zelensky or saw any point in doing so.
A source close to Leiva da Rocha told the FT that he still remains involved in prisoner exchanges and aspects of a peace plan, though his role has diminished since the US and Russia started negotiating directly.
In the past, Abramovich brokered a round of negotiations in Istanbul in March of 2022, and later helped secure a deal to secure Ukrainian exports through the Black Sea. The Wall Street Journal reported later that Abramovich, along with three other Ukrainian negotiators, were treated for symptoms consistent with chemical poisoning.
According to a Jewish leader in Kiev, Abramovich is necessary to the Ukrainians because “he is the only Russian who gets along with everyone and is the son of an Ukranian mother."
This comes after Zelensky published an open letter to the Russian president on Thursday evening in which he called on Putin to agree to direct talks and end the war.
"We must determine what kind of future awaits the generations of Ukrainians and Russians who will come after us. If you do not personally come to the conclusion that it is time to end this war, Ukraine will continue fighting for its existence," he wrote.
FT states that according to Abramovich, Zelensky “thinks he can solve everything through the magic of his personal charisma at a leadership meeting."
Zelensky has repeatedly pushed for direct, face-to-face negotiations with Putin throughout the war, but sources told the FT that the Russian president was uninterested.
“This is not something Putin goes for at all. And it doesn’t really work on Trump either. But Zelensky is totally fixated on it,” one source told the FT.
