Who is Putin's "Dark Prince" and will he show mercy for him PHOTO

Who is Putin's "Dark Prince" and will he show mercy for him PHOTO

How close he is to Putin tells us that the two of them are spending the summer together on the Black Sea in Putin's residence in Sochi and Medvedchuk's villa in Crimea, and Putin is the godfather of Medvedchuk's daughter Daria.

Furthermore, what further insinuates the closeness of these politicians is what the foreign media have been speculating about for a long time.

Namely, the media claim that the attack on Ukraine is not strictly for its rapprochement with Europe, but that there is some element of Putin's personal revenge for the closure of Medvedchuk's pro-Russian television stations by Ukraine, confiscation of his family's property and his final home detention due to treason, which Putin called the "absolute pure political game", writes the Guardian.

Medvedchuk was seen in Russia as the main character in Ukraine and its politics, or rather the main interlocutor for all pro-Russian political actions. "Medvedchuk was a legitimate way for them to provide their future influence in Ukraine... his 'persecution' initiated all", a former Russian official told the Guardian, who knows Medvedchuk personally.

After the Russian attack on Ukraine, Medvedchuk was placed under house arrest at his residence in Kyiv on charges of treason due to an alleged conspiracy with the Kremlin to overthrow the elected Ukrainian government. But his appearance in custody gave the Ukrainian government an unexpected opportunity to bargain, and officials suggested exchanging prisoners and suggested that Medvedchuk shared information that would make his life in Russia uncertain.

"I suggest to Russia to replace this man of yours with our boys and our girls who are now in Russian captivity," Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's president, said in a video address. Little information was given about the arrest of Medvedchuk by the highest official of the Ukrainian Security Service.

The photos published by the Ukrainian services show him sitting frowning, in full military camouflage and handcuffed. The Kremlin responded to the arrest by claiming that Putin had no special relationship with Medvedchuk.

But things quickly turned around when, after the video and photos of Medvedchuk were published, in which he appealed for an exchange for "the defenders of Mariupol and its citizens who are there today and do not have the opportunity to safely exit through the humanitarian corridor."

Russian television soon released a video of two Britons, Shaun Piner and Aiden Aslin, who are individually looking to be exchanged with Medvedchuk, but are not appealing to Ukraine and Zelensky, but to Great Britain and Boris Johnson.

"I would like to appeal to the British government to bring me home, I would like to see my wife again," said Shaun Piner. "If Boris Johnnon really cared about British citizens, as he claims, then he would put pressure on Zelensky to do the right thing and return Victor to his family, and return us to our families," Aslin said. In addition to detaining Medvedchuk, the Ukrainian security service seized over 150 goods in his possession.

According to a statement from the Ukrainian Security Service, the goods seized include 26 cars, 32 apartments, 23 houses, 30 plots, 17 parking spaces and a yacht. They also seized shares of capital in 25 factories owned by Medvedchuk and his wife Oksana Marchenko.

Ukrainian Forbes estimated his fortune at 620 million dollars in 2021, but the seized property tells a different story, giving a clear picture of the lavish lifestyle of one of the richest Ukrainian oligarchs. Pure proof of this is the yacht that was moored in Croatia after the seizure.

The yacht is more than 90 meters long and is estimated at 200 million dollars.

The question is whether Putin will agree to any exchange just to bring back his closest ally.