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Volodymyr Zelensky has gone out of his way since he was Ukrainian president to avoid provoking Moscow. But one action has infuriated the Kremlin: the Kiev coup against Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch and politician who sponsored Russian President Vladimir Putin on his daughter.
In February, the Ukrainian government put Medvedchuk in his place list of sanctions, froze his assets and shut down three television channels under his control for allegedly spreading misinformation.
Zelensky’s move against the businessman, an expression of his frustration at one blocked peace process that the war in eastern Ukraine has not ended, may have been a factor behind that of Russia saber break and the mass mobilization of troops along Ukraine’s borders last month, analysts said.
Ukrainian prosecutors, without being discouraged, last week sought that of Medvedchuk stop accused of treason. On Friday, Putin responded by saying that Moscow would respond “quickly and appropriately, given all the threats facing us.” Ukraine, he added, “is slowly but surely becoming an antipode of Russia, another anti-Russian.”
Zelensky has been pressured by the Biden administration to curb the Ukrainian oligarchs and intensify the fight against corruption.
Medvedchuk, 66, a former head of the presidential cabinet in the early 2000s, made a fortune as a lawyer before devoting himself to banking and energy. It was used by Zelensky’s predecessors as a secondary channel to Moscow and played a role in the Minsk talks that were intended to end the war between Ukrainian and Russian forces in the Donbas region.
But more recently, Ukraine’s pro-Western leadership has seen him as the voice of the Kremlin, broadcasting its views through partner-owned television channels and through its leadership of the Opposition Platform – For Life , the largest pro-Russian opposition party in Ukraine. , which opposes the country’s future integration into NATO and the EU.
“Medvedchuk is not only an oligarch, but he is also the Kremlin’s main agent of influence in Ukraine for decades,” said an adviser to Zelensky, who explained repression as an urgent part of a broader effort to break up. the capture of oligarchs of the country’s politics and economy.
“This makes it very dangerous for the national security of Ukraine,” the adviser added.
The employer was not immediately available for comment.
Medvedchuk has echoed Moscow’s demands to end the Donbass conflict, and urged Ukraine to hold direct talks with leaders of Russian-backed pro-independence regions and grant them autonomy that would potentially give them the power to veto on the future integration of the EU and NATO.
“It’s Putin’s good in Ukraine,” said Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukrainian Forum at Chatham House in London. It is “like a magnet for all pro-Russian groups, for pro-Russian sentiments.”
Before they withdrew, the television stations under their control had broadcast for years narratives “almost the same as Russian state television channels,” according to Natalia Ligachova, editor of Detector Media, a Kyiv-based media watchdog.
“Putin presents himself as a hero, Russia is a friendly nation with which we need to have friendly ties, our enemy is the west, the Ukrainians are fascists and… After all, this is not a real nation.” .
Through their speakers or through long monologues by Medvedchuk himself, the channels had spread the view “that Russia is not attacking Ukraine, that Ukraine attacked itself and is to blame, that it is a civil war said Ligachova.
Medvedchuk has repeatedly denied owning channels 112, NewsOne and Zik. They belonged to Taras Kozak, a partner of Medvedchuk and a fellow pro-Russian deputy, who was also charged last week with treason. Ukrainian authorities said he is in Russia. Medvedchuk said Kozak is in Belarus.
Medvedchuk, who has been sanctioned by the United States since 2014 for undermining Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity, denied the crime and described the charges as “an accusation of political motivation,” which was addressed Thursday to a court that ordered house arrest.
Zelensky’s administration and independent experts have pointed to evidence that the Kremlin effectively funded the political and broadcasting activities of Medvedchuk and his associates by granting them lucrative energy deals in Russia.
The case is still being investigated, but the Attorney General and head of security of the State of Ukraine said that for now Medvedchuk and Kozak were accused of treason related to two separate episodes. These include allegedly transmitting to Russia information about a secret military unit and engaging with Russian officials in offshore hydrocarbon transactions on the occupied Crimean coast.
“Zelensky’s fight against Medvedchuk is a fight against Putin,” said Hanna Hopko, president of Ants, a Kiev-based national interest group.
Meanwhile, the oligarch has used his political position to undermine Zelenksy’s reformist drive. The president has been struggling to revise a notoriously corrupt judicial system many of whose judges were appointed by Viktor Yanukovych, the former pro-Russian president who fled to Russia after being ousted by the 2014 pro-democracy revolution.
In an attempt to get a wedge between Kiev and its Western sponsors and derail a $ 5 billion IMF bailout, parliamentarians allied with Medvedchuk last year successfully filed a petition in the unreformed constitutional court of Ukraine to neutralize newly established anti-corruption institutions. Fearing that the court might cancel farmland sales and other reforms that are conditions for continued western support, Zelensky set aside his first judge when authorities launched investigations against him.
Mykhailo Pogrebinsky, a political analyst who describes himself as a “friend” of Medvedchuk, said Zelensky was behaving like a “trick” in silencing critical media and trying to crush the leader of a party backed by 3.5 millions of voters in the 2019 elections.
But the rise in scores of the president’s polls in recent months suggested that “the suppression of these Russian representatives in Ukraine has broad support for Ukrainian society,” Lutsevych said.
“It is surprising that after the invasion of Crimea and the invasion of the east, Medvedchuk still managed to operate for so long and strengthen its influence,” he added.
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