Zelenskyj vill byta Putins vän mot ukrainska fångar

Viktor Volodymyrovych Medvedchuk (Ukrainian: Віктор Володимирович Медведчук, Russian: Виктор Владимирович Медведчук, Viktor Vladimirovich Medvedchuk); born 7 August 1954) is a Ukrainian lawyer, business oligarch and politician who was elected as People's Deputy of Ukraine on 29 August 2019. He is the chairman of the pro-Russian political organization Ukrainian Choice and an opponent of Ukraine joining the European Union.From 1997 to 2002 Medvedchuk was a member of the Ukrainian parliament.Medvedchuk served between 2002 and 2005 as chief of staff to former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma. After this he was absent from national politics until 2018.In November 2018, Medvedchuk was elected chairman of the political council of the political party For Life, which later merged into the Opposition Platform — For Life party. In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, the party won 37 seats on the nationwide party list and six constituency seats. As he placed third on the 2019 election list of Opposition Platform — For Life, Medvedchuk was elected to parliament.On 19 February 2021, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine included Medvedchuk and his wife, Oksana Marchenko, on the Ukrainian sanctions list, due to alleged financing of terrorism. On 11 May 2021, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine accused Medvedchuk of treason and attempted looting of national resources in Crimea (which had been annexed by Russia but remains internationally recognised as Ukrainian). Medvedchuk's house arrest started on 13 May 2021. Medvedchuk escaped this house arrest on 28 February 2022, four days after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and went missing. On 8 March 2022 he was deprived of the post of co-chairman of Opposition Platform — For Life. On 12 April 2022 Medvedchuk was arrested by the Ukrainian authorities.In Ukraine, Medvedchuk is considered an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, whom Medvedchuk has referred to as "a personal friend". Some foreign commentators have also called him Putin's closest ally in Ukraine. Putin is the godfather of Medvedchuk's youngest daughter.