Viktor Medvedchuk, the pro-Russian Ukrainian politician being held on treason charges, offered himself in exchange for the evacuation of trapped residents in the besieged port city of Mariupol, according to a video released Monday by Ukraine’s secret service.
Medvedchuk, the former leader of a pro-Russian opposition party who is close with Russian President Vladimir Putin, appealed to his friend and to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by name in the video.
He said he was making a “plea for the Ukrainian side to exchange me for the defenders of Mariupol and its citizens, who are there today [and] have no opportunity for a safe exit through a humanitarian corridor.”
The 67-year-old oligarch escaped from house arrest, which he was serving on treason charges, before Putin launched his multipronged attack on Ukraine on Feb. 24.
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Medvedchuk made his money from Russian oil interests and his proximity to Putin, who is his youngest daughter’s godfather. He was charged with treason in May 2021 and accused of selling military secrets to Moscow and exploiting Crimea’s natural resources.
As Medvedchuk made his plea, two British men who surrendered to Russian forces in Mariupol appeared on Russian media asking to be part of the exchange.
The men, who identified themselves as Sean Pinner and Aiden Aslin, asked British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to exchange them for Medvedchuk. The men had been serving with the Ukrainian marines before being captured by Putin’s troops in Mariupol last week.
In the video, Pinner had deep circles beneath his eyes and appeared exhausted, but he said he and Aslin had been treated appropriately.
The two videos were released within an hour of each other.
Ex-British Army soldier Shaun Pinner, 48, was paraded on propaganda TV in Russia.
He was told his Ukrainian commanders wanted him to be killed as he fled a factory hideout in Mariupol.
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Elsewhere, the last of the Ukrainian fighters remained holed up in a fortresslike steel plant in Mariupol on Monday after rejecting Russia’s demands to surrender on Sunday. The fate of the port city, which has been under almost-constant attack since the war broke out seven weeks ago, remained unclear and largely dependent on how much longer the remaining forces could hold out in the underground tunnels at the Azovstal steel plant.
The capture of Mariupol would be a huge strategic win for Russia, securing a route to Crimea and freeing up forces for the offensive in the Donbas region in the east.
On Monday, the head of the regional administration in Luhansk, which is part of the Donbas, said Moscow had taken the town of Kreminna, adding to territory held in the region by Russian forces.
Military analysts and talking heads on Russian state-run television have been calling a large-scale offensive in the Donbas a decisive battle that could be a turning point in the war, the New York Times reported.
So far, Moscow has only been able to claim the capture of Kherson, a regional capital, as its largest military victory.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday that Russian forces carried out missile strikes on a number of targets overnight in the east. Russia’s air force, missile force, artillery, and air-defense systems had hit more than 300 targets.
In western Ukraine, multiple missiles hit Lviv, killing at least seven people and injuring 11 others.
“Five powerful missile strikes at once on the civilian infrastructure of the old European Lviv,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, said on Twitter after the attack. “The Russians continue barbarically attacking Ukrainian cities from the air, cynically declaring to the whole world their ‘right’ to … kill Ukrainians.”
Regional Gov. Maksym Kozytskyy said the Russian strikes hit three military infrastructure facilities and a tire shop. The wounded include a child.
Lyudmila Turchak, 47, who fled with two children from the eastern city of Kharkiv, said, “There is no longer anywhere in Ukraine where we can feel safe.”
Lviv and the rest of western Ukraine have seen only sporadic strikes during the war and had been a safe haven for people from other parts of the country where fighting has been more intense.
In his overnight address, Zelensky said Russian troops in southern Ukraine have continued to carry out torture and kidnappings, and he implored the world to respond.
“Torture chambers are built there,” Zelensky said. “They abduct representatives of local governments and anyone deemed visible to local communities.”
The Ukrainian president also alleged that humanitarian aid has been stolen, creating pockets of famine in the country.
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He once again called for increased sanctions against Russia, including its entire banking sector and oil industry.
“Everyone in Europe and America already sees Russia openly using energy to destabilize Western societies,” Zelensky said. “All of this requires greater speed from Western countries in preparing a new, powerful package of sanctions.”
