The Ukrainian oligarch and opposition politician Viktor Medvedchuk is said to have been arrested by Ukraine’s intelligence service.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has shared a picture of Ukraine’s most prominent pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk (67).
In the photo, Medvedtsjuk is sitting on a chair dressed in Ukrainian military uniform and handcuffed.
– A special operation was performed thanks to SBU. Well done! writes Zelenskyj, adding that more details will come later.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment for comment Ria news.
– I saw Medvedtsjuk. I can not say anything about whether there is any truth in this, because it would be wrong to say something, he says, referring to “many fake news from Ukraine”.
–Late Tuesday night, Zelenskyj writes on Telegram that Medvedtsjuk hid for 48 days, before he finally decided to try to escape the country.
– I find his use of military camouflage particularly cynical, he writes.
Zelensky proposes to exchange Medvedchuk for Ukrainian prisoners of war.
– I suggest to Russia that we can exchange this guy for our boys and girls in Russian captivity.
– Will be held responsible
– You can be a pro-Russian politician and work for the aggressor state for years. You may have been hiding from justice lately, and even used a Ukrainian military uniform as camouflage. But will it help you escape punishment? Not at all, writes Ukraine’s security service on Facebook.
SBU leader Ivan Bakanov thanks officers, intelligence and investigators who carried out the operation that led to the arrest.
“No traitors escape punishment and are held accountable under Ukrainian law,” Bakanov said.
Zelenskyj’s adviser Mikhail Podoljak writes Twitter:
In order to survive, Medvedtsjuk must hide in a Ukrainian prison. He is guaranteed several years in prison. In Russia, he will definitely be liquidated as a person who regularly lied about the mood in Ukraine, stole money and eventually became one of the initiators of the war.
–Medvedchuk is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is said to be the godfather of Medvedchuk’s youngest daughter.
According to The Washington Post the relationship between Putin and Medvedchuk dates back 20 years.
Since 2018, Medvedtsjuk has led the largest Russian-friendly party “Opposition Platform – For Life” in Ukraine. Medvedtsjuk himself has denied that the party is pro-Russian.
In 2014, Medvedchuk ended up on the US sanctions list after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula.
Escaped from house arrest
He was sentenced to house arrest in 2021, after being accused of treason by enriching himself by extracting natural resources on the annexed Crimean peninsula, but escaped four days after the invasion began in February.
The Kremlin condemned the accusation against Medvedchuk. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the whole thing a “witch hunt” and thought it was “anti-Russian”.
According to the Attorney General, he never escaped from the country, writes Ukrainskaja Pravda. Oksana Marchenko’s wife, on the other hand, went to Belarus and later published a video from Moscow.
In 2021, Forbes Magazine estimated that Medvedtsjuk’s fortune was $ 620 million.
An earlier version of this case stated that “In the presidential election in Ukraine in 2019, Zelensky won over Medvedchuk by a good margin”, this is not true. The correction took place on April 13 at 00:25.
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