Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian Ukrainian baby-kisser and oligarch, was once detained in a “particular operation,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated Tuesday on Telegram.
Zelensky posted a photograph of a handcuffed and disheveled-looking Medvedchuk dressed in fatigues, with the caption: “A distinct operation was once performed because of the SBU [the Security Service of Ukraine]. Neatly achieved! Main points later.”
Previous to Russia’s invasion, Medvedchuk had confronted allegations of treason in Ukraine and were beneath area arrest. His whereabouts were unknown within the weeks following the invasion. Some observers speculated that Medvedchuk or considered one of his allies could be the Kremlin’s desire to steer a puppet executive in Ukraine if the Feb. 24 invasion succeeded in toppling Zelensky.
Putin ties: Medvedchuk was once sanctioned by means of the United States in 2014 “for threatening the peace, safety, balance, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine, and for undermining Ukraine’s democratic establishments and processes.”
However the businessman additionally served as a go-between for Moscow and Kyiv after the outbreak of the Donbas battle in 2014 by means of leveraging his private ties with Putin. In a 2019 interview with filmmaker Oliver Stone, Putin said that he was once godfather to Medvedchuk’s daughter.
“I’d no longer say that we’re very shut however we all know every different smartly,” Putin stated. “He was once [former Ukrainian] President [Leonid] Kuchma’s leader of team of workers, and it was once on this capability on the time that he requested me to participate within the christening of his daughter. In step with Russian Orthodox custom, you’ll’t refuse this sort of request.”
Medvedchuk additionally had notoriety in Ukraine for his position because the Soviet state-appointed protection legal professional for the Ukrainian dissident poet Vasyl Stus, who died in a Soviet exertions camp in 1985.
In a remark, SBU head Ivan Bakanov stated, “You will be a pro-Russian baby-kisser and paintings for the aggressor state for years. Chances are you’ll disguise from justice in recent years. Chances are you’ll even put on a Ukrainian army uniform for camouflage … However will it permit you to to flee punishment? On no account! Shackles are looking ahead to you. And for a similar traitors of Ukraine as you!”
Bakanov added, “Professional-Russian traitors and brokers of the Russian intelligence services and products, take note — your crimes haven’t any statute of obstacles. And there are not any hiding puts the place we wouldn’t to find you!”
CNN was once no longer right away in a position to succeed in a prison consultant for Medvedchuk.
