THE Russia will consider the possibility of exchanging prisoners of war of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion with Viktor Medvenchuk, a Ukrainian politician and businessman close to Vladimir Putin, MP Leonid Slutsky, who is taking part in the talks, said today.
“We will look into the matter,” Slutsky was quoted as saying by Ria Novosti.
From the city of Donetsk where it is located, in the southeast Ukrainethe Russian MP clarified that the proposal of such an exchange will be transferred to Moscow “by those who have the right”.
Victor Medvetsuk, 67, was arrested in mid-April in Ukraine. He had been under house arrest since May 2021 after being accused of “utter treason” and “attempting to plunder the natural resources of Crimea”, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
On Friday, the Russian military announced that the last fighters defending Mariupol, who had been fortified for weeks at the Azofstal steel plant, had surrendered. Among them are members of the Azov Order, a unit that the Kremlin describes as “neo-Nazi.” The Kyiv hopes to exchange these fighters with Russian prisoners of war.
On May 26, Russia’s Supreme Court will consider a request to classify the Azov Order as a “terrorist organization”, which could complicate the exchange of prisoners.
Donetsk separatist leader Denis Pushilin said today that Ukrainian soldiers who defended Azovstal and surrendered should be tried. “I think the court is inevitable: justice must prevail,” Pushilin told a news conference where Leonid Slutsky was speaking.
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