The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has published a video in which detained Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk asks Russia’s and Ukraine’s presidents to swap him for the “defenders and residents” of Mariupol.
“I, Medvedchuk Viktor Vladimirovich, want to ask Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the Ukrainian side exchange me for the defenders and residents of Mariupol, who are there today and are unable to safely get out through humanitarian corridors,” says Medvedchuk in the video.

Medvedchuk, a lawmaker and leader of Ukraine’s second-largest party, ‘Opposition Platform – For Life’, was detained by the SBU on April 12 after being charged with treason, as his party was recently banned by Zelensky for “collaborating with Russia.”
After his arrest, Ukraine’s interior minister adviser, Vadim Denisenko, suggested Medvedchuk be “swiftly tried, given a prison term, beaten into providing certain testimony and then exchanged,” – a statement that was blasted by a number of Russian officials.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova mocked the suggested plan for Medvedchuk’s prosecution, saying, “It’s a British scheme: Hold a swift trial, give a prison term, and then extract testimonies. Works every time.” She warned that Kiev’s idea of exchanging Ukrainian opposition politicians with Russia was a “very dangerous tendency” as there are a lot of opposition-leaning politicians and public figures in Ukraine.

Moscow commented on the idea of swapping a Ukrainian opposition leader for any of Kiev’s soldiers captured during the ongoing offensive, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov arguing that Medvedchuk was not a Russian citizen, had nothing to do with Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and might not even want Russia to play any role in his fate.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of the Russian national security council, responded to the Ukrainian interior ministry adviser’s suggestion by saying that people supporting such ideas “should pay attention to their surroundings and keep the door locked for the night not to get added to the list of individuals eligible for a prisoner swap themselves.”

Meanwhile, Oksana Marchenko, Medvedchuk’s spouse and a Ukrainian actress, has been pleading with several world leaders to help save her husband, stating in a press conference on Friday that she still has no information about her husband’s whereabouts and raising concerns that he is being tortured by the SBU.

“On one of the photos there are no signs of trauma, but on another picture you can clearly see bruises and hematomas which they tried to cover up with hair. This means that the pictures were taken before and during the interrogation. There is no doubt that he was being beaten up during the first hours of his detention,” she said.

She has been asking to make every possible effort to release her husband, insisting that she does not believe in a fair process for her husband and that the trial against him is a “vivid example of unlawful reprisal against an undesirable politician for his consistent, principled and open position.”....

https://www.rt.com/news/554084-ukraine-medvedchuk-video-swap/

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