[ad_1]
Zelensky Volodymyr has left his path to avoid provoking Moscow since he became president of Ukraine. One action has angered the Kremlin: Kyiv against the Russian oligarchy and politician Viktor Medvedchuk, Russian President Vladimir Putin who has made his daughter’s godfather.
In February, the Ukrainian government put Medvedchuk on top of him list of penalties, froze assets and shut down three TV channels it controlled, spreading misinformation.
The move against the Zelensky businessman, an expression of his frustration a peace process without blockade He failed to end the war in eastern Ukraine behind Russia saber and last month there was a massive mobilization of troops on the Ukrainian border, analysts said.
Without worrying, Ukrainian prosecutors searched for Medvedchukena last week arrested accused of treason. On Friday, Putin responded that Moscow “would respond immediately and properly, taking into account all the threats posed.” Ukraine, he added, “is slowly but surely becoming the antipode of Russia, the anti-Russia.”
Zelensky has come under pressure from the Biden administration to crush the Ukrainian oligarchs and step up the fight against corruption.
Medvedchuk, 66, a former senior presidential employee in the early 2000s, enriched himself as a lawyer before branching out into banking and energy. Zelensky’s predecessors used it as a Moscow canal and played a role in the Minsk talks that were intended to end the war between Ukrainian and Russian-backed forces in the Donbas region.
But recently, the leadership of Western Ukraine has taken the floor to the Kremlin, communicating its views through television channels owned by an associate and its leadership of the Opposition Platform – for life, the largest Russian opposition party in Ukraine. , which opposes the country’s future integration into NATO and the EU.
“Apart from being an oligarchy, Medvedchuk has been a major driving force behind the Ukrainian Kremlin for decades,” a Zelensky adviser said, describing the crackdown as a profound part of a broad rupture effort to capture the country’s political oligarchy. economy.
“This makes it very dangerous for the national security of Ukraine,” the adviser added.
The employer was not immediately available for comment.
Medvedchuk has joined Moscow’s call for an end to the Donbas conflict, and has called on Ukraine to hold direct talks with leaders backed by Russians in the breakaway regions and to grant autonomy that will veto EU and NATO integration in the future.
“Putin’s property is in Ukraine,” said Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukrainian Forum at Chatham House in London. “It’s like a magnet for all pro-Russian groups, for pro-Russian sentiments.”
Before it was aired, the television stations under its control had been broadcasting the narratives for “years almost identical to Russian state television channels,” according to Natalia Ligachova, the Detective Media editor of the Kyiv-based media watchdog.
“Putin is presented as a hero. Russia is a nation of friends and we need to have friendly ties with it. Our enemy is the West, the Ukrainians are fascists…. This is not a real nation, after all.”
Through his chief speakers or long monologues by Medvedchuk himself, the channels spread that “Russia is not attacking Ukraine, Ukraine is attacking itself and that it is itself to blame, that it is a civil war,” Ligachova said.
Medvedchuk has repeatedly denied having 112, NewsOne and Zik channels. Taras Kozak, a member of Medvedchuk and a member of the pro-Russian deputy, was also accused of treason last week. Ukrainian authorities have said he is in Russia. Medvedchuk said Kozak is in Belarus.
When he went to court on Thursday to order his house arrest, Medvedchuk – who has been convicted by the U.S. since 2014 for harming Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity – denied wrongdoing and described the charges as “politically motivated accusations”.
Zelensky’s administration and independent experts have shown evidence that the Kremlin financed the broadcasts and political activities of Medvedchuk and his partners by providing large energy business interests in Russia.
The case is still being investigated, but Ukraine’s chief prosecutor and the head of state security have said Medvedchuk and Kozak are currently accused of treason linked to two episodes. These include allegedly providing Russia with information about a secret military unit and engaging in offshore hydrocarbon transactions with Russian officials on the occupied coast of Crimea.
“Zelensky’s fight against Medvedchuk is a fight against Putin,” said Hanna Hopko Ants, chairwoman of a group defending national interests based in Kyiv.
Meanwhile, the oligarch has used his political position to push for Zelenksy’s reform. The president has tried to reform rotten judicial system many of these judges were appointed under the command of former Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, who fled to Russia after the 2014 pro-democracy revolution.
In an attempt to stir up a rift between Kyiv and its Western aides and a $ 5 billion bailout, the lawmakers who joined Medvedchuk last year successfully submitted anti-corruption neutral organizations to Ukraine’s unconformed constitutional court. Fearing that the court could overturn the sale of agricultural land and other reforms that are conditional on the continuation of Western aid, Zelensky set aside his chief justice when authorities launched probes against him.
Mykhailo Pogrebinsky, a political analyst who describes Medvedchuk as a “friend,” said Zelensky is acting like a “crook” by silencing critical media and trying to shake the head of a party backed by 3.5 million voters in the 2019 election.
However, assessments of the president’s polls in recent months have suggested that “the elimination of these Russian proxies in Ukraine is highly acceptable in Ukrainian society,” Lutsevych said.
“It is amazing that Medvedchuk has been operating for so long after the invasion of Crimea and the eastern invasion and strengthening its influence,” he added.
[ad_2]
Source link
