Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich secretly sent $245K to Vladimir Putin’s former high school teacher: report
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich secretly paid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former high school teacher $245,000 for an apartment, it was revealed, a gesture that shows the deep financial ties between the two men.
Abramovich appeared to act as the despot’s personal banker when he provided the gifts — including an apartment — after Putin made a state visit to Israel in 2005 and met his former high school teacher, Mina Yuditskaya-Berliner, who had emigrated to Palestine.
The heartwarming story made headlines, revealing a soft side of the KGB lifer-turned-dictator.
But this week, the Washington Post revealed that the cash actually came from a Cyprus-based shell company controlled by Abramovich.
Louise Shelley, director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University, told the New York Post that the money tells its own story.
“The money came directly from an account controlled by Abramovich, which is significant because it shows that he was doing financial favors for Putin,” Shelley said.
“It is also significant because the information came from a leak to journalists. It’s another example of how uncovering financial secrets is crucial to understanding the Kremlin’s financial relationships,” Shelley added.
The news comes as Abramovich, who is sanctioned in the UK and the EU, fights to stay off the US sanctions list.
Russian oligarchs are on sanctions lists because they are part of Putin’s inner circle.
But Abramovich is currently off the US sanctions list — reportedly at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — because he is close to Putin and could be useful in potential future peace talks with Russia, sources say.
In the past, Abramovich has denied financial links to Putin and has said he does not operate at the dictator’s behest.
But it turns out — thanks to recently uncovered financial records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the Washington Post and the Israeli publication Shomrim — that Abramovich, not Putin, paid for the apartment via N.P. Gemini Holdings Ltd., a Cyprus-based shell company that Abramovich controlled.
Yuditskaya-Berliner bought the apartment the day the money, $245,000, landed in her bank account, according to reports.
Back in 2005, the Ukrainian-born teacher said she cried when she got the apartment.
When Yuditskaya-Berliner died, at age 96 in 2017, she left the apartment to the Russian Embassy in Palestine.