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Ukrainian prosecutors call for the arrest of Viktor Medvedchuk, a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin and leader of Ukraine’s main pro-Russian party, on suspicion of crimes such as “treason” and “looting of national resources” in Crimea.
The development, announced on Tuesday by Attorney General Iryna Venediktova at a press conference and on Facebook, will provoke new tensions between Kiev and Moscow. It comes after the pro-Western administration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sanctioned Medvedchuk earlier this year shut down three television channels linked to the multimillion-dollar politician for allegedly spreading Russian misinformation.
It also follows the recent deployment of more than 100,000 Russian troops along the border with the eastern regions of Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists are embroiled in a fierce war with Kiev and Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
The “warnings of suspicion” announced by Venediktova amount to preliminary charges to the Ukrainian system. He also noted that authorities were seeking the pre-trial detention of Medvedchuk, the location of which is still unclear.
“According to the results of the research, the whereabouts of the People’s Deputy [Medvedchuk] have not been established and therefore the SBU [state security service] he is taking the appropriate steps to find him and file a request for his arrest, ”Venediktova said in a post on Facebook.
Ukrainian security guards search the home of pro-Russian parliamentarian Viktor Medvedchuk in Kiev © Anatolii Stephanov / AFP / Getty
Zelensky did not immediately comment on the allegations against Medvedchuk.
Pre-trial detention in prison or under house arrest must be approved by a court. A person familiar with the matter said authorities intended to detain Medvedchuk in prison.
Charges were also announced against Taras Kozak, a business associate of Medvedchuk and a member of the pro-Russian party of the opposition platform – For Life.
Venediktova said both men had collaborated to acquire oil and gas fields on the Crimean coast, implicitly accepting the peninsula as Russian territory.
“It is not allowed to consider Crimea as part of another state. . . Nor is it allowed to create an army of information clowns and dominate them with their own anti-Ukrainian interests, ”Venediktova posted on Facebook.
At the press conference, Ivan Bakanov, head of the SBU, said that Kozak and Medvedchuk had also given Russia “secret data on the location of a hidden military unit of the [Ukrainian] armed forces, their personnel, combat training. . . a kind of gift for the secret services of the Russian Federation ”.
Kozak was currently in Russia and “does not plan to return,” Bakanov said.
In a statement, Medvedchuk’s party described the charges as “political repression.”
The Zelensky administration has claimed that Medvedchuk’s pro-Russian activities were funded through companies in Russia that he and his associates control.
Medvedchuk, who has been sanctioned by the United States since 2014, has routinely visited Russia for face-to-face talks with Putin since Crimea was annexed. The leader of Russia is also the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter.
“Viktor Medvedchuk has been a well-known Russian-influenced agent in Ukraine for a long time,” said Tetiana Shevchuk, a lawyer for the Kiev-based anti-corruption watchdog.
In statements to television on Tuesday earlier, the Ukrainian leader said most of the more than 100,000 Russian troops deployed earlier this year near the eastern border of Ukraine and Crimea had not been withdrawn.
“There we do not see a decline,” Zelensky said during a discussion on national and Western-backed efforts to boost Ukraine’s defenses.
“Ukraine does not want a war, but for peace, paradoxical as it may seem, it must have a powerful and capable army,” he added.
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