According to reports, ROMAN ABRAMOVICH met privately with Vladimir Putin to beg with him to cease the war in Ukraine.

The Chelsea owner allegedly travelled to Moscow from his south-of-France property only hours after the Russian despot ordered his forces to launch their assault.

Abramovich, 55, arrived late but was permitted to speak after apologising for his tardiness.

Despite his inability to persuade Putin, he was given authority to function as a mediator, according to the Financial Times.

The UK government has sanctioned the millionaire, alleging that he is a Putin crony and that he supplied steel for Russian tanks.

But he has remained a mediator and was even poisoned when in Kyiv meeting with Ukrainian officials, fearing for his life as he went blind.

While Abramovich has downplayed his Kremlin ties, the oligarch’s personal bond with Putin might be critical to his involvement in attempting to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

“It appears that they have far deeper ties than I thought,” said another oligarch who has known both men since the 1990s.

“No one was aware.” No one else could play this part.”

Abramovich has been flying back and forth between his house in Israel, Ukraine, Russia, and Turkey, where he attended peace negotiations for the first time since the poisoned discoveries.

Others, though, regard Abramovich’s stance as a mediator as having ulterior objectives.

According to Vladimir Ashurkov, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation created by imprisoned Russian activist Alexei Navalny, Abramovich may be attempting to avoid penalties.

“I’m not sure how much of his engagement in this mediation is genuine and productive, and how much is a public relations stunt,” he added.

“He’s a creative man, and he has creative people working for him, so it may just be a means to soften the penalties.”

So yet, Abramovich does not appear to have made much progress in convincing Putin to cease the conflict.

After their initial encounter, he travelled back to Moscow, this time to give Putin a handwritten message from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

The message described the circumstances under which Ukraine would accept a cease-fire, but Putin remained unconvinced.

“Tell him I’ll thrash them,” the Kremlin strongman said in response to Ukraine’s president.

Abramovich was poisoned with the World War One chemical warfare agent chloropicrin or a modest dose of novichok, according to study.

He, along with two Ukrainian peace negotiators, apparently became ill after eating poisoned chocolates.

The purported strike was blamed on Moscow hardliners who seek to disrupt peace negotiations and keep Vladimir Putin’s brutal conflict against Ukraine going.

One person there told the New York Times that his symptoms were so bad that he questioned scientists evaluating him, “Are we dying?” at one point.