kyiv. Ukrainian deputy and businessman Viktor Medvedchuk, very close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and on the run since the invasion of Ukraine began, was captured in a special operation, the kyiv authorities announced yesterday, April 12.
“A special operation was carried out thanks to the SBU (Ukrainian security services, ndlr). Bravo!” Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski said on the Telegram application.
The president published a photo in which the detainee was seen, handcuffed and wearing a Ukrainian uniform.
“You can be a pro-Russian politician and work for the aggressor state for years. You can run away. You can even wear a Ukrainian uniform to go unnoticed. But will that help you escape punishment? Not at all. traitors to Ukraine like you,” Ukrainian security services confirmed on Telegram.
Medvedchuk, 67, had been under house arrest since 2021 after being accused of “high treason” and “attempted looting of natural resources in Crimea”, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
On February 26, two days after the start of the Russian invasion, the police confirmed that he had fled.
The tycoon has the 12th fortune in Ukraine, estimated at 620 million dollars, according to Forbes magazine, and is known for his relations with Putin, who would apparently be the godfather of one of his daughters.
President Zelensky proposed handing over Medvedchuk: “I propose to the Russian Federation to exchange this guy of yours for our boys and girls who are now in Russian captivity,” Zelensky said in a video posted on Telegram.
In March, Zelensky said that the Opposition Platform – For Life, to which Medvedchuk belongs, had been suspended.