Ukraine has said it has arrested Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian who has escaped house arrest. The upscale businessman and politician is known as a good friend of Vladimir Putin.
15.4. 07:00 • Updated 15.4. 10:19
Viktor Medvedchuk there should be no chance of any success in any Ukrainian election.
However, his party’s Opposition Program – For Life has been Ukraine’s second or third most popular party in recent polls and elections, right after President Volodymyr Zelensky’s People’s Servant Party.
On Monday, the world rushed to the pictures, in which Viktor Medvedchuk sits looking slimming with handcuffs in his hands.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi told, among other things, in a video posted on Instagram, how Viktor Medvedchuk had been caught on his 48-day flight. Medvedchuk, 67, had been released from house arrest, where he had been held for almost a year, awaiting the start of treason proceedings.
Senior researcher at the University of Tampere, social scientist Arseniy Svynarenko is an expert in recent history and domestic politics in Ukraine. He teaches and lectures on Ukrainian politics and culture at the University of Tampere.
The case of Viktor Medvedchuk is very familiar to Arseniy Svynarenko.
– Viktor Medvedchuk represents the corrupt and gray policy that has taken place in several countries that have seceded from the Soviet Union since the break-up of the Soviet Union, says Arseniy Svynarenko.
When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, several individuals were able to seize huge fortunes and establish good relations with the country’s political leadership. They became influential people, now called the oligarch.
Viktor Medvedchuk is one of them.
As a young man, Medvedchuk studied law. In 1980 – still in Soviet times – he was in a trial defending a dissident, a poet Vasyl Stusia.
– The minutes of the court hearing show that Medvedchuk supported the prosecutor. As a result, the poet received a 10-year sentence and died in prison in the fall of 1985, says Arseniy Svynarenko.
A politician without charisma
At the turn of the millennium, Medvedchuk wrestled with the then president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchman administration. Among other things, he was responsible for opposing the then opposition and free press.
– He is one of the main figures in Ukraine’s obscure and informal politics, concludes researcher Arseniy Svynarenko.
Medvedchuk is notoriously pro-Russian and has been under house arrest pending charges of treason.
He has created a particularly good relationship with the Russian president Vladimir Putin. This is illustrated, among other things, by the fact that in 2014, Putin became the godmother of Medvedchuk’s daughter.
Arseniy Svynarenko, a senior social scientist at the University of Tampere, highlights one unusual feature of Viktor Medvedchuk that is a politician. It reveals why Medvedchuk himself is not the number one leader or candidate in his election.
– He has no charisma that a politician should have. He is the opposite of charisma, says Svynarenko.
Svynarenko says that Medvedchuk has remained out of the public eye throughout the 21st century, but at the same time has built good relations with Russia and Putin in particular.
– Although he has been one of the leaders of the Social Democratic Party and the current Opposition Program – For Life party, he has never been a public politician. He has made every effort to avoid public events where people or journalists might ask him something.
According to Arseniy Svynarenko, one example illustrates that Medvedchuk wants to resolve things in his own way, that is, without publicity.
– He contributes by distributing money, through corruption and other informal means, but not in public.
Leading figure for the pro-Russian side
In the wake of the Soviet Union, there has been and still is a large Russian minority in Ukraine. The main language of the country is Ukrainian, but there are many Russian speakers.
The Russian and Ukrainian languages are very close, but they still have a clear difference. Researcher Arseniy Svynarenko says that several Ukrainian politicians, including those who were originally Russian-speaking, usually speak publicly in Ukraine.
However, Viktor Medvedchuk, who lived in western Ukraine, has not done so.
– The use of the Russian language is his clear choice.
Medvedchuk’s party Opposition program – For life, according to researcher Svynarenko, is also clearly pro-Russian. In addition, it is anti-EU and Eurosceptic.
The party is not pushing for Ukraine to join Russia, but for Ukraine to be allied with Russia in foreign policy.
– The party leaders are very rich Ukrainians. In the election, however, they say they represent the poor. They speak Russian to the poor class, says researcher Arseniy Svynarenko.
Svynarenko cites an example of how Medvedchuk’s party comrades, who entered the country’s government in Ukraine in the early 2010s, reduced taxation on large companies but raised taxes on small businesses and sole proprietors.
– In reality, they served oligarchs and representatives of big companies.
Viktor Medvedchuk has acquired his vast wealth from oil and coal trades, factories and providing legal services.
A driver of self-interest
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Viktor Medvedchuk have met several times, including in public. According to researcher Arseniy Svynarenko, Putin has given the impression that Medvedchuk is representing Ukraine abroad.
Medvedchuk was also one of the negotiators of the Minsk agreement in 2014. In it, Russia and Ukraine agreed to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
– The then president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has said that Medvedchuk was involved only because he has a really good relationship with Putin.
In recent years, Medvedchuk has pursued his own interests in eastern Ukraine.
– It seems that Medvedchuk also pursued his own interests in the peace talks. He wanted to secure the oil and coal trades of his own companies in Luhansk and Donetsk, thinks researcher Arseniy Svynarenko from the University of Tampere.
Now, Medvedchuk is back in custody, at least according to reports from Ukraine.
– I have been really surprised that Medvedchuk was caught, says Svynarenko.
“I suggest to the Russian Federation that this friend be replaced by our sons and girls who are now in Russian captivity,” said Zelensky.
According to researcher Arseniy Svynarenko, the issue has already been commented on in the Ukrainian press.
– The press writes that before he is replaced, Medvedchuk must be informed of Putin’s intentions. Medvedchuk is certainly one of the people who knows best how Russia has influenced Ukraine, says Arseniy Svynarenko, a senior researcher at the University of Tampere.