A Ukrainian court imposes house arrest on Putin ally MP Víktor Medvedchuk

A Ukrainian court has imposed house arrest on pro-Russian MP Víktor Medvedchuk, leader of the largest opposition party in Parliament and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine's attorney general accuses Medvedchuk and Taras Kozak, another well-known politician of the Opposition Platform for Life, of "high treason" and "looting of national resources" in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014 with a referendum considered illegal by the international community. The deputy has denied having committed irregularities and has charged against the judicial measure that he defines as "political repression."

The process against Medvedchuk, who has close personal ties with Putin, his daughter's godfather, and the development of the case may increase tensions between Kiev and Moscow after a few weeks of escalation due to Russia's large military deployment along the Ukrainian borders.

There, according to Kiev, there are still tens of thousands of soldiers even though Moscow announced that they would begin to withdraw from April 23.

Medvedchuk is considered one of Russia's strongest political allies in Kiev.

His party has 44 seats in Parliament, with 422 members, although in recent weeks in popularity polls it has lost second place and now ranks third in voting intention, behind the party of former president Petro Poroshenko.

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The deputy no longer has parliamentary immunity since a long-awaited law to abolish it came into force in Ukraine at the beginning of last year, the government's commitment to fight corruption.

Ukraine's attorney general, Irina Venediktova, raises three points in the cases against Medvedchuk: she suspects that the deputy and oligarch shared information with Russia - through deputy Kozak - about a Ukrainian military unit in the Donbas, where Kiev troops are fighting. against pro-Russian separatists supported politically and militarily by the Kremlin in a conflict that has lasted for seven years.

Medvedchuk is also accused of acquiring oil and gas fields in the Black Sea, off the coast of Crimea, in collusion with Russia. In addition, the Ukrainian secret services believe that Medvedchuk was creating a network focused on Ukrainian migrant workers and students in Russia to collect their data and share it with the Russian secret services in the interest, says the prosecutor, of recruiting them for "propaganda missions" or of espionage.

The case is part of a broader campaign against Medvedchuk - who is on the US sanctions list for helping to undermine Ukraine's sovereignty - launched by the Ukrainian authorities last February, when they froze his financial assets and those of his wife. , for three years, and ordered the blocking of three television channels controlled by the oligarch - although they are formally owned by Kozak - claiming that they represent a risk to national security by spreading disinformation from the Kremlin.

The Prosecutor's Office requested provisional imprisonment for Medvedchuk and Kozak, whom they have not located in Ukraine. However, after a court hearing that lasted more than eight hours, a court in Kiev on Thursday night issued a house arrest for the politician until July 10, with the possibility of posting a bond of about 10 million dollars. The authorities have withdrawn his passport and he must wear an electronic bracelet to check that he does not leave home. If convicted, they can face up to 15 years in jail. "Crimea is not allowed to be considered part of another state," prosecutor Venediktova wrote on her Facebook page. "It is also not allowed to create an army of information clowns and dominate them as puppets according to their own anti-Ukrainian interests," he added.

Medvedchuk has stated in a statement that the charges against him are "fabricated." In a note, his party has charged against the judicial measure and has insisted that the processes against the deputy are "a clear indicator of the slide of Ukraine towards dictatorship." The Kremlin, which has said on several occasions before that Putin has great respect for Medvedchuk and values ​​his role as a "go-between" with Kiev, has stated that it will not interfere in the case. However, Putin's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, remarked that he is observing the case “carefully”; also that "I would like to make sure that there are no political motives behind the process."

Meanwhile, former Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, now head of the National Security Council, has described the case against Medvedchuk and Kozak as a "witch hunt" with the aim of "diverting attention" from the problems of Ukrainian President Volodymyr. Zelensky. “Threats to two politicians with real terms for trumped up charges will not improve the qualifications of current officials. Rather, on the contrary, they will lead to further degradation of the system and exacerbate its political insanity, "Medvedev said, according to a note released by the party he leads, United Russia, which the Kremlin supports.