Viktor Medvedchuk: Ukraine secret services capture pro-Kremlin politician and Putin ally after weeks on run

Ukraine’s secret services have captured a pro-Russia politician and close friend of Vladimir Putin weeks after he escaped house arrest.

President Volodymyr Zelensky published a photo of Viktor Medvedchuk in handcuffs on Tuesday.

Last year, Ukrainian authorities opened a treason case against Medvedchuk, who says Mr Putin is godfather to his daughter. He denies wrongdoing.

In 2018, Ukrainian opposition politician Medvedchuk gave an exclusive interview with The Independent ahead of the election in March of that year.

At the time, Mr Medvedchuk offered little clarity on his political aims. He claimed he had no intention to “jostle for positions”. But as if to underline his predilection for the shadows of politics, he added formal positions meant nothing – not in a government that had has “lost its entire point of being”.

“The government has no influence on life in the country. It has no monopoly of force,” he said.

Medvedchuk was reported to have escaped house arrest just three days after Putin launched his invasion of the country on 24 February.

Medvedchuk, the leader of the For Life party, had been under house arrest since last year after the authorities opened a treason case against him.

His lawyer denied the allegation from Kyiv that he had escaped, instead saying Medvedchuk had been forced to move location due to threats from nationalist groups.

“In connection with the real danger to life, as well as the need to ensure his protection, Viktor Medvedchuk was evacuated to a safe place in Kyiv,” the lawyer Larysa Cherednychenko said.

His lawyer also said Medvedchuk would continue to meet his legal obligations during the hearing of the treason case.

The opposition politician was first placed under house arrest in may over accusations of treason and attempting to ransack state resources in Crimea, which was annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014.

His arrest stirred up trouble from Moscow last year and news of his possible escape comes as Russia unleashed a full scale invasion of Ukraine.

British intelligence believes Russia had intended to install a pro-Russian puppet government, a claim that the Kremlin has brushed off.

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