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Ukraine has stripped Viktor Medvedchuk — a former oligarch and an in depth good friend of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — of his Ukrainian citizenship, the federal government says, in an announcement that highlights Kyiv’s effort to excise the affect of outstanding pro-Moscow politicians inside the nation.
Mr. Medvedchuk, a former deputy speaker in Ukraine’s Parliament and a onetime presidential adviser, was handed over to Russia in September as a part of a prisoner swap. The authorities in Ukraine had captured him in April after he fled home arrest whereas awaiting trial on treason prices in a case initiated final 12 months.
His affect in Ukraine was such that his title surfaced within the U.S. investigation into Russian meddling within the 2016 American elections. Mr. Medvedchuk was a consumer of Paul J. Manafort, the Republican political marketing consultant who suggested pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians earlier than turning into chairman of Donald J. Trump’s presidential marketing campaign.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine stated in an in a single day speech late Tuesday that the choice to finish Mr. Medvedchuk’s citizenship was based mostly on a report by the nation’s safety providers. “If individuals’s deputies select to serve not the individuals of Ukraine, however the murderers who got here to Ukraine, our actions shall be applicable,” Mr. Zelensky stated.
Russia’s invasion has made nationwide survival the overriding focus of Ukraine’s politics, and, in consequence, has closed the area for brokers of Moscow’s affect who for many years have performed a task in Ukraine’s inner affairs.
Final spring, Ukraine seized a few of Mr. Medvedchuk’s huge wealth, which had been amassed by vitality offers with the Kremlin whereas he labored in assist of Russian pursuits in Ukraine and past.
Mr. Zelensky stated that the state had additionally stripped citizenship from three others: Leonidovych Derkach, Taras Romanovych Kozak and Renat Raveliyovych Kuzmin. All three have been at onetime members of Ukraine’s Parliament and served pro-Russian pursuits.
Mr. Medvedchuk was handed over to Russia in September alongside Russian pilots and senior army officers in alternate for greater than 200 Ukrainian fighters. On condition that he has already been dwelling in Russia for months, the rapid impact of the citizenship resolution on him could also be restricted.
Mr. Putin visited Mr. Medvedchuk’s Crimea residence in 2012, and an official Kremlin {photograph} confirmed him with the Russian chief at a martial arts match in 2013.
Russian officers had beforehand performed down their curiosity in Mr. Medvedchuk, regardless of his ties to Mr. Putin, who’s the godfather of Mr. Medvedchuk’s daughter. A Kremlin spokesman in Could had dismissed the concept of exchanging Mr. Medvedchuk for Ukrainian fighters, saying that he had “nothing to do with Russia,” based on the Russian state information media.
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