The famous wife of Vladimir Putin’s main ally in Ukraine He personally called on President Volodymyr Zelensky to release him from captivity, saying on Friday that he was being beaten and “persecuted for political reasons.”
Oksana Marchenko, a former TV star who hosted ‘X-Factor Ukraine,’ first posted a direct appeal on Wednesday, a day after her husband, Viktor Medvedchuk, a longtime friend of Putin’s, was detained in kyiv. for treason
“President Zelensky, I ask you to take all necessary measures for the immediate release of my husband,” she said, speaking directly to the camera. your youtube call.
“There is no doubt that my husband is persecuted for political reasons, contrary to the laws of Ukraine and international law,” insisted on the 67-year-old oligarch and former leader of a pro-Russian opposition party.
friday she issued new calls at a press conference in Moscowinsisting that her husband was a “political prisoner”.
“I have no doubt that my husband was beaten within hours of his capture,” Marchenko told the news conference, without providing evidence.
“I ask for help to stop the physical and mental torture,” he said.
He said that “unfortunately” he had not heard from Zelensky, and admitted that he did not expect it either.
“He does not answer those questions, it is his own law,” Marchenko added, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
Medvedchuk – listed by Forbes last year, when the 12th richest person in Ukraine, worth $620 million, was placed under house arrest last May on charges of ‘high treason’.
In January, the United States also accused Medvedchuk of participating in Russian intelligence efforts to groom friendly Ukrainian politicians to take over the country with the support of the occupation forces.
According to Ukrainian police, he fled house arrest days after Putin invaded Ukraine in late February.
Zelensky announced his arrest on Tuesday, showing him shot and handcuffed, and sparking much celebration.
“It is a symbolic event, like the capture of Goebbels, a great success from a moral and political point of view,” he said. Sergiy Leshchenko, Advisor to the President of Ukraine, referring to the head of Nazi propaganda.
“He was the man who received direct instructions and resources from Putin to prepare the ground for the invasion,” he alleged, according to Agence France-Presse.
Medvedchuk and the Kremlin deny pulling the Kremlin’s strings in kyiv.
However, he has made no secret of his closeness to Putin, even boasting that the hard-line president is the godfather of his youngest daughter, Daryna.
“We have a great relationship. It was built for many years,” Medvedchuk told Agence France-Presse in 2019.
with post wires
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