Litvinenko's widow tells Roman Abramovich to give Chelsea profits to Ukraine

The widow of murdered former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko has called on Roman Abramovich to donate any money he makes from selling Chelsea to Ukraine.

Abramovich is actively looking to find a buyer for the Premier League football club – which he bought in 2003 – and is selling property he owns in London amid calls for the 55-year-old billionaire to be sanctioned following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Marina Litvinenko has been a prominent campaigner against Vladimir Putin since her husband was poisoned in 2006 and says there are questions that need to be answered surrounding the timing of Abramovich’s move to sell Chelsea.

She says Abramovich’s reputation has already been ‘demolished’ in the UK but donating profits from the sale of Chelsea to Ukraine would go some lengths to proving he is not a foil for Putin – a link he has always denied.

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Speaking to The Telegraph about the oligarch’s efforts to find a buyer for Chelsea, Marina said: ‘My advice is, if Abramovich wants people to see him as a human, with this money he might donate to the Ukrainian fight for liberty, for their country, for their language, for everything.’

She added: ‘Then I would understand why he tries to sell Chelsea.’

In 2015, the high court heard claims that Alexander Litvinenko had actually been investigating Abramovich – among others – in the year he was murdered.

Abramovich and a number of other Russian oligarchs are still yet to face sanctions from the UK government, with Labour leader Kier Starmer asking Boris Johnson ‘why on earth’ this was the case in parliament on Wednesday.

Marina Litvinenko feels the UK were far too accommodating of Abramovich and others, but has joined calls for assets to be frozen as soon as possible – before they get the chance to sell them off.

She continued: ‘I don’t want to criticise and say, “Oh, you didn’t do this a long time ago”, but my husband was absolutely furious when he realised how easy it is for people who benefited from unfair business in Russia to receive everything in the UK.

‘We need to try to avoid being gangsters in this as well, because it was always Putin’s point: “Why do you criticise us when you’re doing exactly the same?”

‘It’s not happened in one year, it’s been developing since 2003 when Abramovich and everybody was welcomed.

‘People just tried to close their eyes over where this money came from, but the first signal was in 2006 when my husband was killed and radioactive polonium was used. How was the reaction? Not very strong.

‘Even more since 2010, more money, more Russians are welcomed to London. The UK and everybody is just saying, “Oh it’s a business, it’s very important” but it was all to a bad end.

‘Could this have prevented a Ukrainian invasion? Difficult to say… if it helps to freeze assets, we have to do it. If we stop short of doing something for today, we might have lost something bigger for the future.’

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