An AFP reporter was injured in a drone attack near Bagmouth

Attentive but running away from attention would be the paradox of the billionaire. A prominent figure in modern Russia, who preferred behind the scenes to front and center, he positioned himself as the most famous and secretive “oligarch”—the entrepreneur who profited from privatization in collaboration with the Kremlin during the collapse of the Eastern bloc. Famously, Roman Abramovich That has changed through his extraordinary career, marrying Russia’s upheavals from perestroika to Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian slide. Orphaned at age 3 from a Soviet Jewish family, patron of the cultural avant-garde or Jewish community and since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, a shadowy diplomat, he knows how to make himself indispensable.

The secret, the man is natural, assures those who meet him often. Described at the same time as aloof, calculating, efficient or devoid of emotions and values, his character contrasts with most oligarchs, who are otherwise arrogant and boastful. Mostly dressed in simple jeans and sporting a three-day beard, the shy fifty-year-old rarely looks his interlocutors in the eye. “His genius was to behave like a good dog: when other merchants barked, he bowed his head and remained loyal.”Phil Broder describes the former manager of Russia’s largest foreign investment fund, Hermitage Capital Management, who first met him over coffee in the mid-1990s.

An attitude that makes Roman Abramovich archaic“Honest Broker”. In international relations, this term refers to a person who is accepted by all parties, but whose personal interests are never forgotten. Since the 1990s, he has built a reputation “Dispute Arbiter”, according to Bill Browder. Can these skills of the elusive and influential compromiser keep up with the mystery that surrounds him?