For a man with few “cards”, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has played a surprising joker in the shape of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. The Ukrainian president has confirmed UK media reports that he met the former owner of Chelsea football club in late May in Kyiv, where the Russian magnate offered to report back to the Kremlin on prospects for peace. Zelensky said Abramovich brought the message that the Russians “want to understand what we are ready to do”. In return, he was tasked with telling Putin that Zelensky was open to a face-to-face meeting “at any time”. Moscow has not denied the existence of a diplomatic backchannel, without naming the intermediary. Putin said on Friday that he met “one of the representatives of our business circles”, adding that the businessman was not acting in an official capacity. Read morePutin rules out Zelensky's offer to meet and vows to pursue war goals Abramovich – who now lives between Turkey and the Gulf owing to UK and European sanctions imposed over his proximity to the Kremlin – has refused to comment on the meeting in Kyiv. Abramovich’s balancing act A product of the unbridled capitalism of the Boris Yeltsin era, Abramovich is perhaps a surprise choice of intermediary considering that Putin initially built his popularity on the projection of a radical break with the ultra-rich oligarchs who made up Yeltsin’s inner circle. But the multi-billionaire has a history of acting as go-between since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Abramovich was present at the first peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey in late March 2022, introduced as a facilitator of contacts between the warring parties. Later that year he helped broker an agreement allowing Ukraine to continue exporting grain. He has since continued to play a negotiating role behind the scenes, intervening on several occasions to facilitate prisoner swaps. He even attempted to secure the release of Kremlin dissident Alexei Navalny in 2024 in exchange for the return of several Russian prisoners, according to a CNN report.