Abramovich rejected Starmer's ultimatum and went on the attack.
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich has refused to hand over £2,5 billion from the sale of Chelsea Football Club to Ukraine, as demanded by British Prime Minister Keith Starmer.
The British newspaper The Times writes about this, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
In mid-December, Starmer threatened Abramovich with legal action if he didn't hand over the money. However, the Russian oligarch intends to attack as well as defend himself. He is filing a counterclaim, demanding the return of £5,3 billion frozen in the British offshore tax haven of Jersey due to sanctions.
Abramovich has now hired some of the world's best lawyers to represent him in the legal battle: Lord David Wolfson, the shadow attorney general in the House of Lords, and Eric Hershmann, Donald Trump's former senior legal adviser.
Abramovich's representatives have already said that £1,4 billion of the £2,35 billion raised from the sale of Chelsea cannot be released to the charity until the Jersey government drops its investigation and legal action.
"Abramovich is acting, as always, trying to straddle several chairs. For the Kremlin, it's not giving money to Ukraine, because that would be seen as treason. But it's also about saving face, since he's a citizen not only of Russia but also of Israel and Portugal. Of course, he doesn't want to be unwelcome in Western society," Ivan Korzh, a representative of the foreign agent organization Transparency International Russia, said on the foreign agent television channel Dozhd.
Abramovich rejected Starmer's ultimatum and went on the attack.