Putin’s man is seeking exchange with soldiers and civilians.
Ukraine Security Council has released a video of the arrest of Viktor Medvedchuk, considered a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The former Ukrainian MP from the opposition party was arrested last week, and offered an exchange to Kiev and Moscow.
However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov ruled out the possibility – denying he could have any connection to the Russian president.
However Medvedchuk had publicly acknowledged that Putin is his daughter’s godfather. Now Medvedchuk is asking Putin to exchange it with Ukrainian residents or soldiers from Mariupol.
“I, Viktor Vladimirovich Medvedchuk, want to address Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, asking the Ukrainian side to exchange me with Mariupol defenders and civilians there,” he said in a video.
Otherwise this politician was arrested in October 2021, when he was accused of treason and helped the Russians in the annexation of Crimea. According to investigators, in 2014 he operated with the Russians in the Donbas – a territory that is not controlled by Kiev since that year.
He was later released from house arrest – but by the end of February he simply disappeared – after the war broke out. However he was arrested again on 12 April