What is Roman Abramovich doing today: the biography and assets of the Russian oligarch who was forced to sell Chelsea and leave the UK after the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
What happened to Roman Abramovich? After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the traces of this Russian oligarch who became famous when he decided to buy Chelsea in 2003 were lost, thus inaugurating a period of crazy spending in the Premier League that continues today thanks to the arrival of the Americans and the sheiks.
Roman Abramovich is a very complex figure, so much so that he could be taken as an example of that marriage between politics, business and sport, which has characterized these first decades of the new millennium.
The oligarch made his fortune in the roaring 90s, with several companies operating in the oil sector: his flagship, Sibneft, was sold in 2002 for 13 billion dollars to Gazprom, the energy giant controlled by the Russian government.
The money collected was reinvested by Abramovich in Evraz and Norilsk Nickel, respectively a British multinational steel company and one of the world’s leading producers of nickel and palladium. At the same time, his closeness to Vladimir Putin, the authentic Tsar of Russia for over twenty years, is also well known.
At the time of the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Roman Abramovich was considered one of the richest men in the world, firmly established in his London where, in addition to Chelsea , he managed his flourishing companies.
Three years later, now Roman Abramovich disappeared from the radar after having to abandon the United Kingdom and sell Chelsea, even if a recent international journalistic investigation into an alleged mega tax fraud brought him back to the front pages of newspapers around the world.
Let’s try to understand who is Roman Abramovich, taking a look at his biography, his network and what this Russian oligarch does today.
Roman Abramovich’s biography
Of Jewish birth, Roman Abramovich was born in 1966 and grew up in Moscow and the main reason for his wealth is the privatization of the production and industrial systems of the former Soviet Union (USSR).
In fact, Abramovich began his activity as an entrepreneur towards the end of the 1980s, just when the president of the USSR Gorbachev had started a reform that gave space to the birth of small private business entities.
It is precisely in the private business of those years that the reason for Roman Abramovich’s wealth lies. In fact, between 1992 and 1995, the owner of Chelsea managed to start five import/export companies thanks to which he specialized in the oil trade sector.
The shares in his possession of the most important of these companies, Sibneft, were sold to Gazprom in 2002 with Abramovich who collected the beauty of 13 billion dollars from the sale.
With this money the magnate was able to acquire Evraz, a British multinational steel production and extraction company based in London and operating not only in Russia, but also in several other countries including Italy.
Abramovich has also been involved in politics in the past: from 2001 to 2008 he was the governor of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in Russia (an autonomous okrug in the Far East of Russia, towards Alaska). Then, until 2013, he was the Speaker of the Parliament of the same area
As for his private life, Roman Abramovich has been married three times, each marriage ended in divorce, having seven children in total with his ex-wives.
What is Roman Abramovich doing today
With the start of the new millennium, Roman Abramovich moved his business to the UK. The acquisition of Chelsea brought him popularity, while steel and nickel brought him further wealth.
One of the first effects of the outbreak of war in Ukraine was the obligation to sell Chelsea: in May 2022, the Blues became the property of an American group led by Todd Boehly, all forking out the beauty of 4.2 billion pounds which partly went to charity and partly remained available to the club.
But where is Roman Abramovich now? In addition to Russian citizenship, the entrepreneur also has Lithuanian, Portuguese and Israeli citizenship, the latter by virtue of his family’s Jewish origins.
Already in March 2022, he was identified in Israel while he was at Tel Aviv airport. The latest news instead wants him in Turkey: according to the Mirror, Abramovich currently lives in a luxurious villa in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods of Istanbul.
The most recent news, dating back to January 2025, indicates that Abramovich is involved in tax disputes in the United Kingdom. In fact, a journalistic investigation revealed that he could owe the British tax authorities up to 1 billion pounds in unpaid taxes, linked to profits from offshore investment schemes.
Furthermore, it emerged that he would have used offshore structures to avoid paying VAT on the management of his fleet of superyachts, with the alleged evasion also involving unpaid taxes in Italy.
Roman Abramovich’s wealth
Among the many Russian oligarchs who have become immensely rich in recent years, according to an estimate made by Forbes a few years ago, Roman Abramovich would be in tenth place in this special ranking.
According to the American specialized magazine, by 2025, Roman Abramovich’s personal wealth would be equal to 9 billion dollars, being indicated as the 320th richest person in the world.
Compared to the 12.4 billion dollars indicated at the time of the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the decline is evident even if Abramovich would have managed to avoid a real collapse. By virtue of his good relations with Vladimir Putin, the entrepreneur in fact, according to an investigation by The Guardian, would have managed to safeguard a good part of his treasure.
“Abramovich would, however, have evaded more than 4 billion dollars in offshore investment funds and luxury goods (real estate, yachts, helicopters and private jets) - Euronews reported at the beginning of January 2023 -, whose property was transferred to his seven children, before the sanctions came into force, after the start of the war”.
Furthermore, “ Abramovich was not hit by American sanctions, after Ukraine asked the White House to spare him as an unofficial peace mediator in the talks with Moscow”.
In essence, the oligarch from an economic point of view would have managed to limit the damage of the sanctions, also due to his willingness to be a sort of mediator between Kiev and Moscow to reach peace in Ukraine, a role that it is not clear how he would have been exercised.
Original article published on Money.it Italy 2025-03-06 13:05:24. Original title: Che fine ha fatto Roman Abramovich? Ecco biografia e patrimonio
