Russia has released a total of 215 people imprisoned in the country. Ukraine has responded by releasing 55 Russian prisoners. Including the much-talked about Ukrainian oligarchs and Medvedchuk politicians.

In mid-April, President Volodymyr Zelenskyj confirmed that they had arrested pro-Russian politicians. The president then immediately announced that the country would look into the possibility of exchanging him for Ukrainian women and men captured by Russia in the war.

Five months later, that wish came true and thus Medvedtsjuk was released.

Friends

The 68-year-old man is known to have close ties to Vladimir Putin. based on Security Medvedchuk and Putin are said to have vacationed together repeatedly, both at Putin’s holiday home in Sochi and at Medvedchuk’s villa on the Crimean peninsula.

Putin will also be the godfather of Medvedtsjuk’s daughter Darjana.

As the leader of a pro-Russian opposition party, he was accused in 2021 of, among other things, selling military secrets to Russia. Medvedtsjuk rejected this and was placed under house arrest when war broke out in February.

He was on the run after that, until he was arrested when he tried to flee the country, according to President Zelensky.

When peace negotiations took place in eastern Ukraine in 2015, Medvedchuk was present on behalf of the then president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko.

Turkey helps

On the Ukrainian side, Zelenskyj said that five commanders, including leaders who defended the Azovstal steel plant in the port city of Mariupol for several weeks, had been sent to Turkey as part of the swap agreement. The agreement was well prepared in advance and concluded with the help of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Freed prisoners of war will remain in Turkey, where they are safe, until the war ends, according to Zelenskyj.

Wednesday’s announcement came a day after Erdogan told US television that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to swap 200 prisoners of war.

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Foreign prisoners of war

Earlier on Wednesday, it became known that ten foreign prisoners of war had been sent from Russia to Saudi Arabia. This is part of the exchange agreement, Zelenskyj said.

Five of these ten prisoners of war were from Great Britain, and two from the United States. In addition, one is from Sweden, one from Morocco and one from Croatia.

– Saudi Arabia is preparing procedures for them to have a safe return journey to their respective countries, said a statement from Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss thanked Ukraine and Saudi Arabia from the start for their assistance in extradition. On Twitter, Truss wrote that she was delighted with the news of the release.