Zelenskyy offers to swap captured pro-Kremlin oligarch who holidays with Putin for kidnapped Ukrainians
Bill Bostock
Wed, April 13, 2022
- Zelenskyy offered Russia the chance to trade a captured Putin loyalist for Ukrainian prisoners.
- Ukraine said Tuesday it had arrested Viktor Medvedchuk as he tried to flee the country.
- Russia has captured thousands of Ukrainian civilians and sent them to Russian territory.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered Russia the chance to trade a captured pro-Kremlin oligarch and ally of Vladimir Putin for kidnapped Ukrainians.
Ukraine's security service
said Tuesday it had captured Viktor Medvedchuk, the millionaire chairman of the pro-Russian political group Ukrainian Choice, with Zelenskyy later posting a photo of him in handcuffs to Telegram.
Medvedchuk seen in handcuffs while being detained by security forces in an unknown location in Ukraine. Handout picture released April 12, 2022.Press service of State Security Service of Ukraine/Handout via Reuters
Medvedchuk
is close to President Vladimir Putin:The pair have often
holidayed together on the Black Sea and Putin is godfather to Medvedchuk's youngest daughter. Like Putin, Medvedchuk has long supported the idea that Ukraine and Russia are indisputably tied together by history.
In
a video address posted on Telegram Tuesday night, Zelenskyy said Medvedchuk was captured while trying to flee the country disguised as a Ukrainian soldier, and that he was open to a trade with Russia.
"I think it is especially cynical of him to use military camouflage. He tried to disguise himself like that. Such a 'soldier.' Such a 'patriot,'" he said.
Medvedchuk and Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Russia, in July 2019.Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
Russia
is believed to have captured thousands of Ukrainian civilians, and sent many to "
filtration camps"
in Russia.
Zelenskyy also warned that Ukraine would track every person who helping Russia in the war.
"Let Medvedchuk be an example for you. Even the former oligarch did not escape, not to mention much more ordinary criminals from the Russian boondocks. We will get everyone," he said.
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Ukraine on Tuesday announced it had arrested Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Kremlin oligarch and politician, as he tried to flee Ukraine.
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