The Russian businessman who traveled to Kyiv in May 2026 and met Volodymyr Zelensky was Roman Abramovich, the Financial Times reports, citing four people familiar with the matter. According to the newspaper, it was Abramovich whom the Ukrainian president asked to relay to Vladimir Putin an offer to meet.
Abramovich has acted as an intermediary between Kyiv and Moscow since the start of the full-scale war. In 2022, the FT described him as Putin’s “trusted fixer,” while Zelensky asked the United States to delay imposing sanctions on the businessman. People close to Abramovich say he remains involved in the negotiating process, although his role has become less public.
“He is needed because he is the only Russian they are willing to tolerate. He gets along with everyone,” one FT source said.
According to another source, Abramovich believes Zelensky is counting on “solving everything through the magic of his personal charisma at a leaders’ meeting.” The businessman, the source said, compares the Ukrainian president’s approach to a “captains’ contest” in KVN, where Zelensky was a star before entering show business and politics.
“Putin is not interested in this at all. And it does not work on Trump either. But Zelensky is completely fixated on it,” the source added.
Two senior Ukrainian officials told the FT that Zelensky’s May proposal for a meeting, passed through Abramovich, resembled the open letter to Putin published on the evening of June 4. At the same time, they said, the tone of the May appeal was “less hostile.”
The Ukrainian president’s office declined to comment. The Kremlin and Abramovich’s representatives did not respond to the FT’s request.
Putin said on June 5 at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that a Russian businessman had traveled to Kyiv to meet Zelensky. He did not name the businessman.
According to Putin, about three weeks earlier the businessman told him he had received an offer to visit Kyiv. He then traveled to the Ukrainian capital and met Zelensky at his residence.
After returning, the businessman, according to Putin, said Zelensky was proposing a meeting. Putin replied that he had never refused to meet, but saw no point in “pouring from empty into void.”
“This was, I think, on May 21. And on May 22, Ukrainian forces carried out a terrible terrorist strike on a college dormitory in the Luhansk People’s Republic, where children and teenagers were killed,” Putin said.
He said he asked the businessman “what this means—that they are asking for a meeting and committing such terrible crimes.” The businessman replied that he had no explanation, but that he was “now receiving calls” from Kyiv, and promised to contact the Russian president later. After that, Putin claimed, they did not speak again.
Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov later said that a “fairly major businessman” whom “many people know” had traveled to Kyiv, but he also did not name him.
On June 6, Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko, citing his own sources, said it was Abramovich who had traveled to meet Zelensky.