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How Viktor Medvedchuk, Putin’s main in Ukraine, fell from grace [1]

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Date: 2022-08 

Three charges of treason

Despite the seriousness of Medvedchuk’s alleged offences, the Lviv court, on the first day of proceedings on 23 June, closed the entire trial to public scrutiny. The case against Medvedchuk contains information about Ukrainian state secrets, both the defence and prosecution argued. This means the disclosure of case materials could harm Ukraine’s national security.

Moreover, they said, Medvedchuk is a suspect and witness in other criminal cases: as an individual with knowledge of the actions of Russia’s top leadership, he requires protection. This is why he is appearing via video link from Kyiv.

openDemocracy contacted a member of Medvedchuk’s legal team for comment, who said they were unable to inform us about the progress of a closed trial, and that they did not have the authority to discuss the legal position of their client.

But in contrast to the secrecy surrounding Medvedchuk’s trial, over the past year Ukrainian law enforcement officials have publicly shared the evidence behind their case against him.

Judging by this evidence, it looks as if the Ukrainian security services (SBU) hacked his email account in autumn 2020.

This evidence – including documents, emails, and records of phone conversations intercepted by Ukrainian counterintelligence – as well as speeches made by prosecutors during court hearings about Medvedchuk’s house arrest, suggest a state secret exists in only the first of the three counts of state treason against the leader of Ukraine’s second largest party.

Ukrainian prosecutors allege that Medvedchuk, using his status as an MP, collected secret information about a small base attached to Ukraine’s military intelligence operation. They claim that, on 1 August 2020, Medvedchuk forwarded this information via email to Taras Kozak, another MP in his political party, Opposition Platform – For Life. According to prosecutors, Kozak was at the time involved in a “systematic exchange of information with the Russian authorities”.

Kozak left Ukraine in May 2021. He has denied all allegations against him from abroad and has since been placed on Ukraine’s wanted list.

Among other items in Medvedchuk’s email account, the SBU found notes on a new political project (‘Lightbeam’ – Promin in Ukrainian), which was meant to work in tandem with the FSB (Russia’s modern equivalent of the KGB) and Russia’s presidential administration to improve perceptions of Russia among Ukrainian expats. This is the basis of the second count of treason against him and Kozak.

From documents released by the SBU, it appears that Promin was supposed to act as an employment agency for Ukrainian citizens living and working in Russia, a service allowing such Ukrainians to transfer money back home, and a platform that would support the integration of Ukrainians into Russian civic and political life more generally, for instance by helping get them into university positions.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/medvedchuk-putin-poroshenko-treason-ukraine-russia/

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