Oligarch’s Refusal To Part With Billions for Ukraine Underscores Price of War

Friendships with Vladimir Putin apparently die hard. Consider the case of the sanctioned Russian-Israeli oligarch, Roman Abramovich, 56, who made big bank when Russia traded the shackles of communism for unchecked kleptocracy and whose comradeship with Mr. Putin goes a ways back. The former owner of London’s Chelsea soccer team, whose sanctioned superyachts found safe harbor in Turkey soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, is keeping nearly $3 billion from the proceeds of the mandatory sale of Chelsea last year from reaching Ukrainian refugees.The reason for that is at once simple and complicated, but it goes back to the reason that Mr. Abramovich sold Chelsea, the English Premier League football club, last year: he had to because of sanctions. He came under British sanctions in March 2022. Then, in May, the English Premier League approved the sale of the club to American businessman Todd Boehly. That still left Mr. Abramovich with close to $3 billion. The proceeds that remain after the sale, though, can only be unfrozen from a British bank account if they are transferred to Ukrainian humanitarian causes. According to a press statement, at the time of the sale Mr. Abramovich “wanted the proceeds to be transferred to a charitable foundation for the needs of the victims on both sides of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.”The Russian-born oligarch is reportedly sticking to his guns. That is what led the British foreign secretary, James Cleverly, to tell a parliamentary committee last week that “We want to be sure that the money that is allocated goes exclusively to those to whom it is intended. I need complete confidence that this is exactly the case.” Mr. Cleverly said that he could not guarantee the transfer of funds from the sale of Chelsea to the needs of Ukrainian refugees before the British government’s break for summer recess in July. That means no resolution before September at the earliest.Separately, the Daily Telegraph reported that the transfer of funds from the sale of the Chelsea football club was being held up because of disagreements between the EU and the British government. The latter seeks to transfer funds to help Ukrainian refugees ostensibly outside of Ukraine, whereas Brussels wants the money to go straight to Kyiv.Right now, though, the money isn’t going anywhere. As for Mr. Abramovich’s intransigence, it is difficult to find fault with it on one level. According to British officials Russia and Ukraine are each suffering high numbers of military casualties as Ukraine fights to dislodge the Kremlin’s forces from occupied areas in the early stages of its counteroffensives.According to an assessment collated by the Defense Intelligence Agency and reported by Reuters in April, Russia has suffered up to 223,000 total casualties, including up to 43,000 killed in action and 180,000 wounded whereas Ukraine has suffered up to 131,000 total casualties, including up to 17,500 killed in action and 113,500 wounded in action. Russian losses are now probably at their highest level since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut in March, the new British assessment said. While the update reported that Ukraine was on the offensive in southeastern Zaporizhzhia province, around Bakhmut and further west in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province and had “made small advances,” it said that Russian forces were conducting “relatively effective defensive operations” in Ukraine’s south.The Western press tends to trumpet Russian casualty numbers but for obvious reasons the Ukrainian military does not like to broadcast its own losses. The fact is that in a war before one side wins both sides rack up losses. Mr. Abramovich’s wish to see his substantial Chelsea pocket money go to both Russian and Ukrainian civilian causes is more impolitic than categorically wrong, but it underscores some of the futility of an attritional war because there are literally millions of dollars that could be aiding victims who, unlike Mr. Abramovich, have absolutely no relationship with Mr. Putin. Those funds are as frozen as are many aspects of the war that the oligarch still cunningly refers to as a “conflict.” It is not hard to discern where his ultimate allegiances lie, but even so, as the Daily Mail reported, he is the one who needs to sign off on the release of the funds. The collision of politics with commerce has essentially blocked him from doing so. It is one thing to vilify Vladimir Putin and the war he is prosecuting, but this is one example of how demonizing the unwitting participants in a war, as opposed to its authors, can cut both ways. For the moment, in this case anyway, only the bank wins.

Oligarch’s Refusal To Part With Billions for Ukraine Underscores Price of War

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