Putin's friend arrested: This is Viktor Medvedchuk

Created: 04/14/2022, 10:25 am

By: Marvin Ziegele

Viktor Medvedchuk in a courtroom in Ukraine just before the start of the war.

© imago-images

He is a friend and staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Now Ukraine is proposing an exchange. 

Moscow – These days the name appears again and again in connection with the Ukraine conflict*.

Viktor Medvedchuk.

It was only on Wednesday (April 13, 2022) that former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reacted angrily to his arrest in Ukraine and described the government in Kyiv as "isolated freaks who call themselves the 'Ukrainian government'".

They want to "beat" a confession out of Medvedchuk and then "swap him for prisoners."

But who is the man who was taken prisoner in Ukraine?

First and foremost, the 67-year-old Medvedchuk is a politician.

A staunch Putin ally for more than two decades, he led a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine for years, even after the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbass.

Viktor Medvedchuk: Vladimir Putin as godfather

But for Russia's President Vladimir Putin*, Medvedchuk is more than that, the British daily Guardian analyzes.

Accordingly, Medvedchuk and Putin are said to have gone on vacation together.

Furthermore, Putin is the godfather of Medvedchuk's daughter Daria.

Shortly before the war in Ukraine, US intelligence services claimed that Medvedchuk had been singled out for a new, pro-Russian government in Ukraine.

As a result, Ukraine confiscated Medvedchuk's personal assets and those of his family and placed him under house arrest.

The accusation: high treason.

Putin described this as an "absolute cleansing of the political field".

Viktor Medvedchuk in Ukrainian custody

After the war in Ukraine* started, Medvedchuk managed to escape from his house arrest.

But his flight did not last long, and shortly afterwards he was back in Ukrainian custody.

How exactly the operation to capture Medvedchuk went is unknown.

Now the government in Kyiv* is proposing an exchange of prisoners.

"I propose to Russia* to exchange this man for our boys and girls who are now in Russian captivity," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy* said in a video address on Telegram.

Russia denies ties to Medvedchuk

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov first suggested that the photos of Medvedchuk could be fake, and then claimed that Medvedchuk "never had any behind-the-scenes relations with Russia."

If that were the case, Peskov said, he would have left Ukraine before the war even started.

(marv)