Russian Oligarch Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian peace negotiators were the victims of a suspected poisoning earlier in March, reports say.
The sanctioned Russian billionaire and at least two senior members of the Ukrainian team were affected after a meeting in Kyiv, according to the Wall Street Journal and the investigative site Bellingcat.
The WSJ report said their symptoms included red eyes, constant and painful tearing, and peeling skin on their faces and hands. But their conditions have since improved and their lives are not in danger.
Bellingcat said the symptoms were consistent with poisoning with chemical weapons. It said the trio suffered effects after attending talks on the afternoon of March 3.
The Ukrainian negotiators are said to have included Crimean Tatar lawmaker Rustem Umerov.
Umerov has since tweeted to say he is “fine”, adding: “Please do not trust any unverified information. We have an informational war ongoing as well.”
The Kremlin has acknowledged that Abramovich played an early role in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, but that the two teams have since taken over negotiations.
Abramovich was asked to mediate by Ukraine because of his background in Russia, where he made his fortune in the chaotic period of post-Communist privatisations in the 1990s.
He is believed to have been travelling between Russia and Ukraine to help mediate talks between governments to end the war, and was seen at an airport in Israel on March 14.
He was later pictured alongside a spokesperson Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during Tuesday’s fresh talks.
It is not known who might have been behind the alleged attempted poisoning, but one theory is that it might have been the work of hardliners who wanted the talks to fail and sent an appropriate message.
The oligarch and owner of Chelsea Football Club is considered close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and has already been targeted by EU and UK sanctions in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Moscow dismissed the reported poisoning as part of an “information war”.
Roman Abramovich’s spokesperson has said he was not sure who might have targeted the group.
Bellingcat said the adverse effects the negotiators suffered were “most likely the result of international poisoning with an undefined chemical weapon” – possibly contained in chocolate or water.
It added that the objective most likely was intended to scare the victims as opposed to cause permanent damage.
A US official has meanwhile told Reuters that intelligence suggests Abramovich and Ukrainian peace negotiators fell ill due to an “environmental factor”, not poisoning.
Russia has been implicated in several high-profile poisonings of Kremlin opponents.
Ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko was killed by radioactive polonium-210 poisoning in London in 2006. A UK inquiry found that President Putin “probably approved” the operation, and last year the European Court of Human Rights held Russia responsible.
The UK and its allies blamed Moscow for the 2018 poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who were targeted with the Novichok nerve agent in the English town of Salisbury. A British woman died after coming into contact with the substance.
In 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny — now in jail in Russia — spent months in a German hospital after falling ill on an internal flight in Russia. The German government confirmed that laboratory tests found he had been poisoned with a Novichok-group nerve agent.
OVERVIEW
OnMyWay Is The #1 Distracted Driving Mobile App In The Nation!
OnMyWay, based in Charleston, SC, The Only Mobile App That Pays its Users Not to Text and Drive.
The #1 cause of death among young adults ages 16-27 is Car Accidents, with the majority related to Distracted Driving.
OnMyWay’s mission is to reverse this epidemic through positive rewards. Users get paid for every mile they do not text and drive and can refer their friends to get compensated for them as well.
The money earned can then be used for Cash Cards, Gift Cards, Travel Deals and Much, Much More….
The company also makes it a point to let users know that OnMyWay does NOT sell users data and only tracks them for purposes of providing a better experience while using the app.
The OnMyWay app is free to download and is currently available on both the App Store for iPhones and Google Play for Android @ OnMyWay; Drive Safe, Get Paid.
Download App Now – https://r.onmyway.com
Sponsors and advertisers can contact the company directly through their website @ www.onmyway.com.
OnMyWay is the Only Texting and Driving Solution That Pays
Trusted and 
By Millions of OnMyWay Mobile App Users