A top ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin has been jailed in Ukraine after his recent apprehension by forces in the country following an escape from the house arrest he’d been under on treason allegations. The individual in question is Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian political leader who the U.S. Treasury Department has stated was involved in Russian plotting to seize control of Ukraine, and in addition to his jailing, Ukrainian authorities have taken control of a wide range of property held by Medvedchuk and his wife, including 26 cars, 30 land plots, 23 houses, 32 apartments, and more. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed exchanging Medvedchuk with Russia for Ukrainian prisoners held by the country, but Putin’s regime refused the offer. In Saturday reporting, The Kyiv Independent described Medvedchuk as “Vladimir Putin’s right-hand man in Ukraine.”
⚡️ Lviv court arrests pro-Kremlin politician Viktor Medvedchuk without bail.
Vladimir Putin’s right-hand man in Ukraine escaped from house arrest in late February following Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Medvedchuk’s Opposition Platform party was banned in Ukraine in March.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 16, 2022
A report from the Ukrainian news outlet Hromadske stated that “Russian special services tried to take Medvedchuk first to Transnistria and later to Moscow,” but “Ukrainian law enforcement officers detained him on his way out of” the area around Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. The Russian government has predictably disputed the claim that Medvedchuk had a “behind-the-scenes relationship” with Putin’s regime, as Hromadske explained it, although obviously: in no scenario is the Putin government’s description of events remotely credible. In January, U.S. Treasury authorities said that Russia “directed its intelligence services to recruit current and former Ukrainian government officials to prepare to take over the government of Ukraine and to control Ukraine’s critical infrastructure with an occupying Russian force. At the heart of this effort are Taras Kozak (Kozak) and Oleh Voloshyn (Voloshyn), two current Ukrainian Members of Parliament from the party led by Victor Medvedchuk (Medvedchuk), who is already subject to U.S. sanctions for his role in undermining Ukrainian sovereignty in 2014. Medvedchuk maintains close ties with the Kremlin, and also took part in directing these activities.”
New. Captured Putin buddy Victor Medvedchuk has been jailed by a Lviv court without right of bail pending trial. His only chance of freedom in the near future lies with the Kremlin.
— Oliver Carroll (@olliecarroll) April 16, 2022
Other worldwide efforts to hold the Putin regime and its operatives accountable for their actions in connection to the invasion of Ukraine have been wide-ranging — including, for instance, the recent arrest by Poland of a Russian citizen living in the country who’d allegedly been working on behalf of Russian intelligence services. That individual was reportedly collecting information on military formations in Poland, including troops associated with both the national military and NATO. U.S. soldiers are among the NATO-affiliated troops in Poland — recently, President Joe Biden visited them and also spoke in Warsaw about the existential stakes of the fight to beat back Russian aggression. Poland also detained two individuals believed to have been collecting intelligence for the Belarusian government, whose leader Alexander Lukashenko has been one of Putin’s few allies amid the currently unfolding crisis. Poland has also expelled dozens of personnel associated with Russia’s diplomatic presence in the country who were suspected of involvement with Russian intelligence. Other European countries undertook similar moves as the isolation of the Putin regime over its atrocities grows.
⚡️ Forbes: Assets of Russian oligarchs frozen in France are worth $920 million.
Forbes calculated that the 31 real estate objects that are owned by eight Russian oligarchs are worth more than the initial French estimates of under $620 million.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 16, 2022
