Roman Abramovich’s heroic Ukrainian grandmother fled Russia as Soviet Ukraine faced invasion by Adolf Hitler
Now the Chelsea owner is accused of having ‘blood on his hands’ for supporting Vladimir Putin's war in her homeland.
Faina Mikhailenko - from whom he inherited his looks - lived with her husband Vasily in Kyiv before she fled in 1941.
She carried Roman’s tragic Ukrainian-born mother Irina, then aged two, from their home in Kyiv to Russia as the Nazi stormtroopers approached.
In doing so she saved them from likely death in the Babyn Yar massacre of Jews in Kyiv the month after she fled - when 33,771 were killed.
“She escaped the tragedy of Babyn Yar where lots of her friends were killed,” said a Russian report.
A Russian missile landed close to a monument at the site in the first days of Putinn's war.
The grandmother’s picture is revealed as Ministers in Britain accused Abramovich and other pro-Putin moneymen of having the “blood of the Ukrainian people…on their hands”.
His business reportedly supplied steel for Putin’s tanks, and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: “They should hang their heads in shame.”
Faina settled in Saratov, where Chelsea tycoon Abramovich - sanctioned this week by Britain with his assets frozen - was born on 24 October 1966.
The grandmother raised Roman for the first six months of his life.
Faina’s husband Vasily, whose surname was Ukrainian, had been arrested by the Soviet secret police after he was denounced by Stalin’s bloody intelligence services as an “enemy of the people”.
Faina, who never saw him again, changed back to her maiden surname - Grutman.
Irina was described by her Saratov school friends as ‘half Jewish, half Ukrainian’, and also ‘the most beautiful girl in the school’.
It was Faina - his Ukrainian grandmother - who played matchmaker, introducing her daughter Irina to Roman’s father Arkady.
After Roman was born, Irina did not have enough milk, and another new mother breastfed him.
The couple moved to the far north of Russia in Syktyvkar but Irina died, aged 27, the day before Roman’s first birthday from blood poisoning after a back street abortion.
She believed they could not afford another child.
Heartbroken Faina was furious with Arkady and at her funeral accused him of being responsible for her death.
Arkady himself was killed aged 32 in a building site accident before Roman turned three, leaving Roman an orphan who was raised by his father’s relatives.
The tycoon is known to have visited his Ukrainian grandmother in Saratov after the death of his parents.
Faina wore mourning dress for the rest of her life after Irina died, but herself died in poverty in Saratov in 1991.
