News
Ukraine has arrested 154 items of movable and immovable property owned by Viktor Medvedchuk, head of the political council of the Ukrainian party Opposition Platform - For Life, and his wife Oksana Marchenko, RIA Novosti reports citing Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation.
«The arrested property items include 26 cars, 30 land plots, 23 houses, 32 apartments, 17 parking slots and a motor yacht. Also arrested are shares of stock in 25 companies beneficially owned by Medvedchuk or his wife,» the report says.
On April 12 (Cosmonautics Day), Volodymyr Zelenski reported Medvedchuk had been detained. Head of Ukraine's Security Service Ivan Bakanov said Medvedchuk wanted to secretly move to Transnistria but the Ukrainian special services thwarted his plan. According to Bakanov, FSB agents planned to send Medvedchuk to Moscow and they involved criminal bosses in the operation and prepared several Medvedchuk look-alikes.
Zelensky proposed that the Russian authorities exchange Medvedchuk for captured Ukrainians:
«He'd been hiding for 48 days. And now he finally decided to try to escape from the country. Well, for this 'cosmonaut' - in the bad sense of the word - the famous phrase «let's go!» didn't work.» «I propose that the Russian Federation exchange this guy of yours for our guys and girls in Russian captivity. It is important that our law enforcement and military also consider such a possibility.»
Since 2018, Medvedchuk headed the pro-Russian party «Opposition Platform - For Life» in Ukraine. Before being elected to the Verkhovna Rada in 2019, he was also a member of the trilateral contact group to resolve the situation in Donbass.
In 2004, Vladimir Putin, together with Dmitry Medvedev's wife Svetlana, baptized Medvedchuk's daughter Daria, becoming her godfather. Medvedchuk was known to meet regularly with the Russian president in recent years.