Roman Abramovich paid for an apartment in Tel Aviv (Israel) for a former professor of Vladimir Putinaccording to a report published this Sunday, in some revelations that seem to confirm the financial links among the famous oligarch and the russian president.
The case dates back to 2005, when Yuditskaya-Berliner Mine, Putin’s former German teacher in St. Petersburg in the 1960s, she learned that the Russian president was going to visit Israel, country to which she had moved in 1973.
The woman, then 80 years old, asked the Russian consulate if she could attend an event to see her former student. The authorities responded more positively than she would have imagined: she was put up in a hotel in Jerusalem and attended in private audience for Putin. The teacher and her former student joked over tea and Putin wrote down her address. Later, gifts arrived at his apartment, among them a clock and a Copy of Putin’s book with a personal message.
Soon after, a Russian government employee showed up at her door and took her to see some apartments in the center of Tel Avivaccording to what the woman told the Israeli media ynet.
“I told him that all I needed was a flat that was close to the bus station, the market and the kuppat holimhe said, using the Hebrew term to refer to a health clinic. “From there everything was very fast. A few months later, the movers came to my apartment. [alquilado] in Florentine [en el sur de Tel Aviv]They packed everything up and moved me,” he explained.
For many years it was believed that Putin had bought the apartment, but as revealed The Washington Posthe Russian-Israeli oligarch Abramovich actually paid for the property.
Records showed that Yuditskaya-Berliner received $245,000 of N.P. Gemini Holdings Ltd., a shell company based in Cyprusthe same day he bought the apartment in June 2005, reported the Post.
Abramovich’s name does not appear in the documents, but other leaked files from a UK court case listed Abramovich as the owner of the company.
A representative for Abramovich said the gifted apartment had been managed by the rabbi. alexander boroda, head of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia. Yuditskaya-Berliner had been living in poor conditions and the federation found her a suitable apartment and donors, she told the Post. Abramovich is the president of the federation’s board of directors.
The apartment deal appears to demonstrate financial ties between Putin and Abramovich, which the oligarch has previously denied.
Yuditskaya-Berliner died in 2017 at the age of 96. He left the property to Russian Federationwho is still listed as the owner of the apartment.
Abramovich made a fortune in the Russian oil and aluminum industries after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which led him to become one of the richest and most influential oligarchs in Russia. He was governor of the region of Chukotka and is known for being the former owner of the English football club Chelsea.
He has been under sanctions pressure since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has been seen in Israel several times since the war began. He took Israeli citizenship in 2018, though it is unclear how long he has been in the country.
In his day he was the richest person in Israel, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine hit his business hard. His assets were reduced by billions. Among other things, he was forced to sell his football club.
Keep reading:
How Putin amassed a $200 billion fortune on palaces, planes and yachts
Why tracking Putin’s wealth is so difficult
“The mafia model” and two other theories of how Vladimir Putin would have amassed his fortune
Source-www.infobae.com