Shamed Chelsea FC oligarch Roman Abramovich has reportedly gone to Poland to act as a negotiator between US President Joe Biden and Russia's Putin.
According to local media reports, the 55-year-old billionaire - who was recently sanctioned by the EU and UK - took a train to Poland on Thursday using his Portuguese passport.
Posting on social media, investigative journalist Jakob Stachowiak from broadcaster TVN said: 'Yesterday he came to Poland in secret from Ukraine by the smart train.
'Interestingly, he used a Portuguese passport. Perhaps there will be an informal meeting with the president. Has Putin sent a billionaire?'
He added: 'The oligarch got to Poland from the territory of Ukraine, where he was allegedly talking to President Volodymir Zelensky.
Zelensky had previously asked Biden not to impose sanctions on the Russian, saying he 'may turn out to be an important intermediary in peace negotiations with Russia.'
Shamed Chelsea FC oligarch Roman Abramovich has reportedly gone to Poland to act as a negotiator between US President Joe Biden and Russia's Putin
Abramovich's luxury lifestyle is being squeezed by EU and UK sanctions - and now the US has moved to prevent his Gulfstream plane from making international flights
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov yesterday confirmed Abramovich attended a first round of peace talks between the two sides in Belarus during the first week of Putin's brutal invasion of his neighbour - that has now dragged on for four weeks.
The news of comes as Biden arrived on a two-day trip to the Polish border town of Rzeszow where he called for NATO unity and slammed Putin as being 'war criminal.
He said: 'The single most important thing we can do from the outset is keep the democracies united in our opposition and effort to curtail the devastation that is occurring at the hands of a man who, quite frankly, I think is a war criminal, and I think will meet the legal definition of that as well.'
Abramovich who is a Russian–Portuguese–Israeli billionaire, was close to the Kremlin during the reign of Boris Yeltsin.
He is said to have been the first person to recommend Putin to Yeltsin as his replacement. During Putin's time in power, Abramovich was the governor of the Chukchi Autonomous Okrug for eight years.
After Russia's attack on Ukraine, the UK imposed sanctions on Abramovich, who has been the owner of Chelsea for almost 20 years since buying the West London football club in 2004.
The club is now up for sale, and is currently under the hammer in a bidding process.
Abramovich has pledged to write off Chelsea's £1.5billion debt and the bidding frenzy for the club could see the eventual deal hit £3billion.
The Russian billionaire made his fortune buying up discounted state assets after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and owns billions of pounds if assets in the UK.
In the past month he has been hit by a string of sanctions in the U.K. and E.U. due to his close relationship with Putin, and scrambled to divest before the asset freeze hit.
According to Polish media, a spokesman for Abramovich said: 'Relying on requests, including from Jewish organisations in Ukraine, he is doing everything possible to support efforts to restore peace as soon as possible.'
This comment from his representatives could not be immediately verified.
The MailOnline has requested a comment from Abramovich's representatives.
Yesterday, Dmitry Peskov - Putin's spokesman - confirmed Abramovich was in attendance during early peace talks - but added that he is no longer attending the summits which are being left to diplomatic teams from the warring nations.
'He did take part at the initial stage,' Peskov said Thursday. 'Now the negotiations are between the two teams, the Russians and Ukrainians.'
Peskov spoke out after it was revealed that President Volodymyr Zelensky had asked Joe Biden not to follow UK and EU sanctions on Abramovich because he might prove 'useful' as an intermediary in talks.
Biden then pressured the U.S. Treasury Department to hold off on sanctions on oligarch, which has not yet followed Britain and Europe in seizing his assets and banning him from travel.
