This friend of Putin is a controversial Ukrainian businessman and politician, who is extremely pro-Russian and is regarded as Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine. Earlier this week we wrote this portrait over hem.
Medvedchuk was arrested on Tuesday after a special operation by the Ukrainian secret service. According to the agency, he was about to flee to Moscow via Transnistria, a pro-Russian renegade region of Moldova on the border with Ukraine. He was intercepted near Kiev.
Request to exchange
Today he can be seen in the video below in which he asks for the prisoner swap. “I, Viktor Medvedchuk, would like to appeal to Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky to trade me for the defenders of Mariupol,” he says, among other things.
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The Moscow regime had previously indicated that it was unwilling to exchange Ukrainian prisoners for a friend of the Russian president.
British prisoners
Two British prisoners have just appeared on Russian state television who in turn called on British Prime Minister Johnson to do his best to exchange them for Medvedchuk.
The two British mercenaries, Aiden Aslin (29) and Shaun Pinner (48), were recently arrested during fighting in Mariupol.
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