Moscow is considering exchanging prisoners from Ukraine’s Azov Battalion for Viktor Medvedchuk, a politician and wealthy businessman close to President Vladimir Putin, a Russian negotiator said on Saturday.
“We will examine the possibility,” said Leonid Slutsky, a member of Russia’s negotiating team with Ukraine in the breakaway city of Donetsk in southeastern Ukraine, RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Medvedchuk, 67, is one of Ukraine’s richest men, known for his closeness to Putin. He escaped house arrest after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, but was arrested again in April.
On Friday, the Russian military announced that the last defenders of the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol had surrendered after weeks of resistance at the Azovstal Steel Plant.
Among the Ukrainian fighters who surrendered to Russian forces were members of the Azov Battalion, a former paramilitary unit that joined Ukrainian forces. Russia classifies this group as a neoNazi organization due to its past ties to farright groups.
Russia’s Supreme Court is due on May 26 to consider a request to designate the Azov battalion as a “terrorist organization,” which would complicate the exchange of those prisoners.