Passionate about champagne, yachts and other bling-bling demonstrations, go your way. Far from the glitter of the Riviera, this documentary plunges into the darkest waters of the Russian oligarchy, those of business, low blows, threats, extortion and assassination attempts. Because, through the portrait of the businessman Roman Abramovich, from his beginnings in the 1990s in favor of the forced privatizations of Russian state enterprises, to the international sanctions targeting the Kremlin’s partners in his murderous offensive in Ukraine in 2022, the director and former correspondent in Moscow Stéphane Bentura describes not only the fate of the most famous Russian oligarch but the construction of an entire system.
A protective shadow
“A world of gangsters who were politicians and politicians who were gangsters”, describes the British journalist and writer Luke Harding. Orphaned by both father and mother at an early age, the young Roman, raised by his uncle in the very remote Republic of the Komi, was to succeed in embarking on the export of oil at the age of 25. Only twelve years later, at 37, he bought himself world stardom along with London football club Chelsea for £140 million. A phenomenal trajectory that could never have been traced without a protective shadow, a “cricha” (a “roof”) in the language of the Russian mafia. In this case that of Vladimir Putin, whose interests Roman Abramovich clearly serves.
Behind his modest, almost shy airs, the businessman is a shark. Yes, but here it is: predatory as he is, he is now trapped in his pact with the master of the Kremlin, mired in the war he launched in February 2022 against Ukraine. “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” for some, “equilibrist” for others, Abramovich plays on all fronts to save his empire.
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“Abramovich, an oligarch in Putin’s shadow”
Sunday May 14 at 8:55 p.m. on France 5. Documentary by Stéphane Bentura (2023). 1h16. (Available in replay on france.tv).
