Martin Docherty-Hughes, a member of the British parliament from the Scottish National Party, on Nov. 28 called for investigating alleged links between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Viktor Medvedchuk, Russian dictator President Vladimir Putin’s right-hand man in Ukraine.
“On the back of the Russian Federation’s illegal and immoral actions in Ukraine, the president of Ukraine is flirting with martial law,” Docherty-Hughes said at the House of Commons. “Once assumed, martial law powers are rarely given up willingly, and unconsolidated democracies that take them rarely survive. In that context, can the Minister assure the House that the links between the president of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s right-hand man, Viktor Medvedchuk, will be fully investigated and exposed, and that we, as a member of the European Union—while we still are—will fully push the rest of the European Union to get its act together and ensure that more solid sanctions are imposed on the Russian Federation?”
Poroshenko and Medvedchuk met regularly over the past four months, according to a Nov. 22 investigation by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Schemes investigative show. Specifically, they met twice not long before Russia imposed sanctions on Ukrainian citizens on Nov. 1.
The meetings between the two took place in the Presidential Administration and at Poroshenko’s estate near Kyiv, always in the night time.
The Presidential Administration said Poroshenko and Medvedchuk had discussed only the issue of prisoner exchanges.
Meanwhile, the sale of the NewsOne opposition television channel and the previous sale of the 112 Ukraine channel earlier this year triggered accusations that Medvedchuk and Poroshenko had effectively taken over the channels through proxy owners.
The Presidential Administration and Medvedchuk denied the accusations.
Lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko has accused Poroshenko of effectively being a business partner of Medvedchuk in the liquefied natural gas business. Poroshenko and Medvedchuk have denied the accusations.
Medvedchuk is also the only person in Ukraine allowed to fly his jet directly from Kyiv to Russia, while all the direct flights are banned and other travelers, including those on private jets, have to make a stop in Minsk. Medvedchuk, who got the special permission from the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, says he uses it to negotiate prisoner exchanges.
Poroshenko has had ties to Medvedchuk since 1998, when he was a member of Medvedchuk’s Social Democratic Party of Ukraine.
Medvedchuk has recently raised his profile and returned to the political scene for the first time since the 2004 Orange Revolution. In July, Medvedchuk joined the pro-Russian Za Zhyttia party. And despite heading the overtly separatist Ukrainian Choice party, Medvedchuk has not faced any criminal cases in Ukraine.
