The UK authorities are delaying the transfer of $2.9 billion from Roman Abramovich to a fund to help victims of the war in Ukraine. Since he received this money from the sale of the Chelsea football club, the funds remain frozen in the British account. Writes about it Bloomberg.
The relief fund is almost ready to go, with a proposed chairman already in place, but approval by the UK government is taking longer than expected. The delay is due to the need to approve the agreements between the UK and the EU.
Almost a year has passed since the sale of Chelsea by Abramovich, but the funds are still frozen in a bank account in the UK. The British Foreign Office declined to comment, Bloomberg clarifies. After the sale of the club, Abramovich himself offered to create a charitable foundation and transfer all the proceeds from the deal to the victims of the war in Ukraine. The funds raised by him will be kept in a British bank account until they are sent to the fund. According to the source of the agency, there are obstacles to donating from a person under sanctions and they will have to be overcome before Ukraine can see at least some of the funds.
Sanctions against Abramovich were imposed by the UK and the EU in March 2022 due to links with the Russian government. Abramovich denied financial ties to the Kremlin and sued to have the sanctions lifted. The Ukrainian government has put Abramovich on its own sanctions list. In January, the WSJ reported that Abramovich continued to participate in talks between Ukraine and Russia, but Ukrainian, US and European officials did not expect him to play a "key role" in those talks.