LOn Monday, February 18, Ukraine released a video of an arrested close associate of Vladimir Putin asking to be exchanged for soldiers and civilians in the besieged city of Mariupol. For its part, Russian public television broadcast videos of two British prisoners asking London to negotiate their release.
“I want to address Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with the request to exchange me by the Ukrainian side for the defenders of Mariupol and its inhabitants,” said Ukrainian MP and businessman Viktor Medvedchuk in this short video. The Ukrainian MP and businessman is dressed in black and seated at a table in this undated video.
A potential exchange of hostages
On the Russian side, state television broadcast calls from two prisoners, identified as British nationals, Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslin, saying they were captured during fighting in Ukraine and asking Prime Minister Boris Johnson to negotiate their release. The two men, who appear with drawn features, ask to be exchanged for Viktor Medvedchuk. They do not specify who is currently holding them, Russian forces or their separatist allies in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelensky had proposed on April 12 in Moscow to exchange Viktor Medvedchuk, 67, arrested the same day, for Ukrainians in captivity in Russia. Asked about a potential exchange, the Kremlin dodged the question by stressing that Viktor Medvedchuk was not “a Russian citizen” and said he did not know if he wanted Moscow to interfere in his case. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had previously shown a photo of Viktor Medvedchuk, handcuffed and dressed in a Ukrainian army uniform. He was arrested, according to kyiv, after an “exceptional and dangerous” operation carried out by the Ukrainian security services.
Charged with “high treason”
Viktor Medvedchuk had been under house arrest since May 2021 after being charged with “high treason” and “attempted looting of natural resources in Crimea”, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. On February 26, two days after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian police had noted his disappearance during a control visit.
Viktor Medvedchuk, 12th fortune of Ukraine in 2021 with 620 million dollars according to Forbes, is known for his links with Russian President Vladimir Putin who is, according to the person concerned, the godfather of one of his daughters. He is the founder of the pro-Russian opposition Platform-For Life party, which had around 30 deputies in the Ukrainian parliament before being banned in March, after the Russian attack.
Consult our file: War in Ukraine
