His $ 200 million 93-meter yacht, the Royal Romance, was seized in Croatia in March. Zelensky proposed an exchange of prisoners in Moscow
In a special operation conducted by the Ukrainian Security Service, Viktor Medvedchuk, oligarch and pro-Russian opposition deputy from the “Opposition Platform – For Life” was arrested. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the capture by posting an image of Medvedchuck handcuffed on social media and the security service remarked that he was wearing a Ukrainian army uniform as a “disguise”. Zelensky proposed to Russia an exchange of prisoners: the release of Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine for “Ukrainian boys and girls who are now prisoners of Russia”. Medvedchuk, 67, has been tolerated for years because it is considered an important channel of communication with the Kremlin. Putin is godfather to a daughter of the businessman enriched by Russian oil interests and his proximity to the Kremlin. Medvedchuk is suspected of treason in two criminal cases. In May 2021, he was charged with looting national assets in occupied Crimea, disclosing state secrets and subversive activities against Ukraine. In October, new charges for coal supplies and relations with organizations considered terrorist in Donbass. Medvedchuk has repeatedly described the accusations against him as “political repression”; he was under house arrest, from which he fled during the early days of the Russian invasion. His $ 200 million 93-meter yacht, the Royal Romance, was seized in Croatia in March, while the United States sanctioned Medvedchuk in January on suspicion of being involved in a plot to set up a Russian collaborationist government.
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