Nadene Goldfoot
It wasn't that hard to become rich in Russia. He served in the army, entered the business world during his army service, He first worked as a street-trader, and then as a mechanic at a local factory. Abramovich enriched himself in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, obtaining Russian state-owned assets at prices far below market value in Russia's controversial loans-for-shares privatization program. After Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, 20 Russian oligarchs have been hit with sanctions by the U.S. and its allies, up from just 11 before the invasion.
That includes Roman Abramovich and six others sanctioned by the U.K. on Thursday. While the list grows longer each day and the war on Ukraine continues, there are plenty of questions as to who gets sanctioned and who doesn’t. Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK government over the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, including asset freezes and travel bans.
Abramovich is one of many Russian "oligarchs" named in the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA, signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2017.
He is one of the Navalny 35. (Navalny 35 (also known as the Navalny's List) are a group of Russian human rights abusers, kleptocrats, and corruptioners involved in poisoning and imprisonment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The initial list contained 35 individuals )
This list looks like a political ploy of the Russian government against the opposition. On 20 August 2020, Russian opposition figure and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent and was hospitalized in serious condition. Putin is known to use Novichok poison on several occastions on people he thinks crossed him.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Abramovich and Chelsea F.C. were sanctioned as part of a group of seven Russian oligarchs. Abramovich had his UK assets frozen and a travel ban. The British government said the sanctions were in response to Abramovich's ties to the Kremlin and said the companies Abramovich controls could be producing steel used in tanks deployed offensively by Russia in Ukraine. Abramovich denies that he has close ties to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.
Abramovich's family is Jewish. His mother, Irina Vasilievna Abramovich (née Mikhailenko), was a music teacher who died when Roman was 1 year old. His father, Aron (Arkady) Abramovich Leibovich (1937−1969), worked in the economic council of the Komi ASSR. He would be considered as Jewish, too. He's a citizen of Russia, Portugal and Israel.
Remember, being this involves being a Russian citizen, Abramovich has been deprived of knowing anything about his Jewish religion, culture or historic facts pertaining to the Jewish people as religion was outlawed in Russia, except what his living relatives could know and share with him.
Roman's maternal grandparents were Vasily Mikhailenko and Faina Borisovna Grutman, both born in Ukraine. It was in Saratov in the early days of World War II that Roman's maternal grandmother fled from Ukraine. Irina was then three years old.
Roman's paternal grandparents, Nachman Leibovich and Toybe (Tatyana) Stepanovna Abramovich, were Belarusian Jews. They lived in Belarus and, after a revolution, moved to Tauragė, Lithuania, with the Lithuanian spelling of the family name being Abramavičius.
In 1940, the Soviet Union annexed Lithuania. Just before the Nazi German attack on the USSR, the Soviets "cleared the anti-Soviet, criminal and socially dangerous element" with whole families being sent to Siberia. Abramovich's grandparents were separated when deported. The father, mother and children – Leib, Abram and Aron (Arkady) – were in different cars. Many of the deportees died in the camps. Among them was the grandfather of Abramovich. Nachman Leibovich died in 1942 in the NKVD camp in the settlement of Resheti, Krasnoyarsk Territory.
Having lost both parents before the age of 4, Abramovich was raised by relatives and spent much of his youth in the Komi Republic in northern Russia. Abramovich is the Chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, and a trustee of the Moscow Jewish Museum.
Abramovich decided to establish a forest of some 25,000 new and rehabilitated trees, in memory of Lithuania's Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, plus a virtual memorial and tribute to Lithuanian Jewry (Seed a Memory) enabling people from all over the world to commemorate their ancestors' personal stories by naming a tree and including their name in the memorial.
Of his 5 children, His eldest daughter Anna is a graduate of Columbia University and lives in New York City, and his daughter Sofia is a professional equestrian who lives in London after graduating from Royal Holloway, University of London.
Abramovich was the governor of Chukotka from 2000 to 2008. It is believed that he invested over US$1.3 billion (€925 million) in the region. During his tenure, living standards improved, schools and housing were restored and new investors were drawn to the region. Chukotka, is the alternative name of the Chukchi Peninsula, eastmost peninsula of Asia in the Russian Far East. Chukotka Autonomous Okrug is a federal subject of Russia.
Abramovich was awarded the Order of Honour for his "huge contribution to the economic development of the autonomous district [of Chukotka]", by a decree signed by the President of Russia.
Abramovich was a confidante of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin and current Russian leader Vladimir Putin according to Judge Gloster and the USA. Abramovich is denying this now. Dame Elizabeth Gloster, DBE, PC (born 5 June 1949) is a former judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and Vice-President of the Civil Division. She was the first female judge of the Commercial Court, and she had something important to say about Abramovich knowing Putin.
In September 2012, the England and Wales High Court judge Elizabeth Gloster claimed that Abramovich's influence on Putin was limited: "There was no evidential basis supporting the contention that Mr Abramovich was in a position to manipulate, or otherwise influence, President Putin, or officers in his administration, to exercise their powers in such a way as to enable Mr Abramovich to achieve his own commercial goals."
Gloster oversaw the case between Russian oligarchs Boris Berezovsky and Abramovich. She found Berezovsky to be "an inherently unreliable witness" and sided with Abramovich in 2012. It later emerged that Gloster's stepson had been paid almost £500,000 to represent Abramovich as a barrister early in the case. Her stepson's involvement was alleged to be more than had been disclosed. Berezovsky stated, "Sometimes I have the impression that Putin himself wrote this judgment". Gloster declined to comment.
U.S. media reports that the U.S. intelligence community believes Abramovich is a "bag carrier", a financial middleman, for Putin.
Israel has yet to join in imposing sanctions against Russia and the Russian oligarchs. If it does so it will need to figure out how to deal with several Jewish oligarchs who hold Israeli citizenship. Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich's private jet landed at Ben Gurion airport this morning. But it's not clear whether he is on board.
Resource:
IsraelAM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Abramovich
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhyatt/2022/03/11/why-some-russian-oligarchs-havent-been-sanctioned/?sh=273423d65bf7
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Gloster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexei_Navalny
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navalny_35
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