Graffs Russian diamonds

It’s no secret that London based Jeweller Graff has a direct relationship with the Russian diamond mining giant Alrosa. The purchase of the 20.69ct Firebird diamond, in 2019 was the first direct purchase by Graff of a diamond from Alrosa and was described by the now heavily sanctioned, CEO of Alrosa Sergey Ivanov as ‘‘ more than just a regular deal for Alrosa’’

‘‘This is the first direct purchase of Graff made without intermediaries, and we hope that it will be the beginning of a new phase of our work’’.

We haven’t been able to confirm with Graff about any purchases after the Firebird, however, with Alrosa accounting for about 1/3 of global diamonds supply, it’s probably reasonable to assume there are some other Russian diamonds in the Graff inventory.

Given the company’s penchant for great big f*ck off diamonds, they probably cost quite a lot. This means that Graff have contributed, probably millions to Alrosa, who are part-owned by the Russian state. The same Russian state who are at the time of writing are advancing on Kyiv.

Whilst nobody is suggesting that Graff could have foreseen the full-scale invasion of Ukraine back in 2019, their relationship with Ivanov probably isn’t that close, diamonds from Russia has been at least Dubious for a while and now they are in no doubt , conflict diamonds.

Whether it’s the silencing of critics, suppressing descent at home, the illegal annexing of Crimea or the persecution of LGBT people, anyone with an interest in ethical sourcing has probably tried to avoid Russian diamonds if they can at all help it.

There’s always a bit of nuance to these things and diamonds are no doubt a source of well-paid work in Siberia however any redeeming points have now gone by the wayside.

So what do Graff do with them now? presumably already paid for, they will probably try and get of rid of them, but to who and where and will customers be made aware of other Alrosa diamonds in their stock?