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Funds for Tel Aviv apartment given to Putin’s former teacher came from Roman Abramovich, records reveal
(JTA) — After Russian President Vladimir Putin reunited with his Jewish high school teacher on an official visit to Israel in 2005, he bought the elderly widow an apartment in Tel Aviv.
That’s according to a widely circulated story based on an interview that the former teacher, Mina Yuditskaya-Berliner, gave to an Israeli news outlet in 2014. At the time, Putin was facing international rebuke over his invasion of Crimea, but Yuditskaya-Berliner had nothing but praise for him.
“When I got the apartment, I cried,” she said. “Putin is a very grateful and decent person.”
Newly uncovered financial records, however, reveal that the funds for the $208,000 apartment came from a bank account in Cypress belonging to Russian Jewish billionaire Roman Abramovich, according to reports published Sunday as part of a collaboration between Israeli investigative outlet Shomrim, the Washington Post and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
A company controlled by Abramovich transferred $245,000 to Yuditskaya-Berliner on the same day she purchased the apartment, documents show.
The discovery of the transaction is notable because it undermines denials by both Abramovich and Putin that the two are financially linked and is likely to bolster suspicions that Abramovich’s ascent to the top of Russia’s business world indebted him to the country’s ruler.
Abramovich is currently under United Kingdom and European Union sanctions targeting Russian oligarchs, enacted in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine last February to target his wealth abroad and penalize his associates.
“The Israeli apartment story perfectly encapsulates how unwritten understandings and winks and nods lie at the heart of the Putin-era system,” Andrew Weiss, a Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who previously held positions at the White House and State Department, told the Washington Post. “Tycoons like Roman Abramovich don’t need to be strong-armed into taking care of small-time stuff at Putin’s behest. They know precisely what’s expected of them and all too happily play along.”
Records of the transaction are part of a trove obtained by the nonprofit group Distributed Denial of Secrets and shared with journalists at several outlets, including Shomrim’s Uri Blau, Greg Miller with the Washington Post, and Spencer Woodman of ICIJ.
Asked to respond to questions, a spokesperson for Putin referred reporters to the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia and said the organization would have been responsible for “any charitable work in Israel.”
Through his own spokesperson, Abramovich said he donated the funds for the apartment but not at Putin’s request. The gift was made in response to “a request received from the Jewish community,” the spokesperson said. Abramovich amassed his wealth by buying state assets on the cheap after the fall of the Soviet Union and has used his fortune, estimated at as much as $13 billion, to become a major philanthropist. He says he has donated more than half a billion dollars to Jewish causes, including to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.
Rabbi Alexander Boroda, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, was quoted in the Jerusalem Post Sunday saying that it was he who had asked Abramovich for a donation for a new apartment after learning that Yuditskaya-Berliner was living in a fourth-floor public housing unit with no elevator and a leaky ceiling.
Putin was a student in Yuditskaya-Berliner’s German class at High School 281 in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg in the 1960s. She left for Israel in 1973 during a wave of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union, which Yuditskaya-Berliner said was characterized at the time by “suspicion, terror and fear.” Putin went on to become a KGB officer in East Germany.
She shared the story of her reunion with Putin and credited him with buying her an apartment in an article published by Ynet in 2014 under the headline, “I was Vladmir Putin’s teacher.”
She said she had lost track of Putin for decades until seeing his face on television next to that of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the late 1990s. Putin was in charge of Russia’s internal security agency but soon succeeded Yeltsin as president.
Ahead of an announced state visit by Putin to Israel in 2005, Yuditskaya-Berliner decided she’d like a chance to see Putin in person and reached out to the Russian consulate. She was eventually invited to an event honoring World War II veterans at the King David Hotel and seated across the table from Putin. Afterward, the Russian president invited her to have tea with him in a private room.
The two reminisced about their shared history and before the meeting ended, Putin had his former teacher write down her address. Gifts started arriving, including a commemorative watch and an autographed copy of Putin’s book. Soon someone showed up and arranged to move her into a new apartment.
Yuditskaya-Berliner died in 2017 at 96. In her will, she instructed that her apartment be given to the Russian government.
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Israeli Military Says It ‘Took Out’ Iran’s Caspian Sea Naval Capabilities
Illustrative: A group of Iranian Navy ships. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Israel carried out strikes targeting the Iranian navy in the Caspian Sea for the first time on Wednesday, an Israeli military spokesperson said on Thursday, telling reporters that Iran’s naval capabilities in the inland sea had been largely disabled.
Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said the Air Force had struck dozens of targets, including missile boats, a corvette, a shipyard used to build and repair vessels, and a command center.
“We have been able to take out their navy capabilities in the Caspian Sea,” he said in an online briefing with reporters.
“That is a systematic strike on all levels of their naval capabilities in the Caspian Sea.”
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US Approves Billions in Arms Sales to Middle East Countries
Smoke billows from Jebel Ali port after an Iranian attack, following United States and Israel strikes on Iran, United Arab Emirates, March 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Amr Alfik
The US State Department on Thursday approved potential arms sales to three Middle East countries worth more than $16.5 billion as the war with Iran intensifies.
The State Department approved the potential sale of missiles, drones, radar systems, and F-16 munitions and upgrades to the United Arab Emirates for a combined total of more than $8.4 billion, it said in statements.
Also approved were possible sales of lower-tier air and missile defense sensor radars to Kuwait for an estimated cost of $8 billion and aircraft and munitions support to Jordan for an estimated cost of $70.5 million.
The sales follow Iran’s attacks on energy infrastructure in response to Israeli attacks on its gas facilities, which marked the biggest escalation of the nearly three-week war, causing gas prices to surge and oil prices to rise further.
The State Department said the principal contractors in the sales will include RTX Corporation, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin Corporation.
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Two Men Appear in UK Court Accused of Spying on Israeli Embassy, Jewish Targets for Iran
Director General of MI5 Ken McCallum delivers the annual Director General’s Speech at Thames House, the headquarters of the UK’s Security Service, in London, Britain, Oct. 16, 2025. Photo: Jonathan Brady/Pool via REUTERS
Two men appeared in a London court on Thursday accused of being tasked by Iran to carry out hostile surveillance on the Israeli Embassy, Britain’s oldest synagogue, and other Jewish targets.
Nematollah Shahsavani, 40, a dual Iranian-British national, and Alireza Farasati, an Iranian national, 22, are accused of being involved in gathering information and undertaking reconnaissance of targets given to them by Iranian spy services over five weeks last summer.
As such, the alleged activities pre-dated the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran which began on Feb. 28.
Prosecutor Louise Attrill told London’s Westminster Magistrates Court that devices seized from the two men had contained a list of targets.
These included the Israeli Embassy, the Israeli Consulate, London’s Bevis Marks Synagogue, a Jewish community center, and the Community Security Trust, a charity which provides security advice for the country’s Jews.
Attrill said the evidence suggested Shahsavani, who had traveled to Iran last April and was stopped under counter-terrorism powers when he returned to Britain in August, had been given instructions by Iranian intelligence services, and he had tasked Farasati to carry out the surveillance.
The men did not enter a plea and were remanded in custody until their next hearing at London’s Old Bailey Court on April 17. Farasati’s lawyer Alphege Bell said his client was “no religious fanatic.”
British lawmakers and the domestic spy agency MI5 have long warned of threats posed by Iran, with accusations that Tehran was behind more than 20 suspected kidnap and assassination plots.
Iran has repeatedly denied such accusations, saying they are part of a campaign against it by hostile Western powers.
Vicki Evans, the senior national coordinator of Britain’s counter-terrorism police, said she hoped the investigation would reassure Jewish communities that police would act on any threats to their safety.