Putin’s right-hand man in Ukraine finally captured
An oligarch who pulled the strings behind pro-Russian political forces in Ukraine for two decades has been captured by Ukranian special forces.
Vladimir Putin’s right-hand man in Ukraine has been captured during a raid by special forces.
President Volodymyr Zelensky shared a photograph of Viktor Medvedchuk, an oligarch known as the “Grey Cardinal” who has pulled the strings behind pro-Russian political forces in Ukraine for two decades, handcuffed and forlorn in a Ukrainian military uniform.
Mr Medvedchuk had been held under house arrest since last year on treason charges over accusations of attempting to steal natural resources from Russia-annexed Crimea and of handing Ukrainian military secrets to Moscow. However, he was thought to have fled after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Mr Medvedchuk is the chairman of the Opposition Platform-For Life, a pro-Kremlin party, and was elected to represent it as an MP in 2019. Mr Putin is godfather to his youngest daughter and has relied on him to represent his interests across the border since he came to power. The Kremlin has been kind to him in return. When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Mr Medvedchuk paid only $US40,000 for shares in a Russian oil refinery, Yug Energo, which has netted him tens of millions of dollars in profits, according to the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
Before Mr Zelensky’s election in 2019, the oligarch was accused of buying up Ukrainian media outlets and using them to broadcast Kremlin talking points, with the apparent aim of bolstering support for pro-Russian parties at the polls. After the election, Mr Zelensky’s administration sought to curb Mr Medvedchuk’s influence, placing sanctions first on the media outlets and then on the oligarch and his family.
Mr Medvedchuk was elected to Ukraine’s parliament in 1997 and became the head of Leonid Kuchma’s presidential administration in 2002.
The Times
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