Pro-Russian oligarch seeks to regain Ukrainian citizenship, parliamentary mandate and lift sanctions through court
Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian businessman and pro-Russian politician to whose daughter Russian President Vladimir Putin is godfather and who has been charged with high treason in Ukraine, has demanded that Ukrainian courts restore his Ukrainian citizenship and parliamentary mandate, as well as lift the sanctions imposed by Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council (NSDC).
Source: Ukrainian public broadcaster Hromadske
Details: Medvedchuk currently resides in Moscow. He has created a "political movement" in Russia called The Other Ukraine, the members of which echo or supplement Russian propaganda narratives.
Medvedchuk publicly blames Ukraine for its unwillingness to end the war, claiming that it is the Ukrainian government that "repeatedly declares that it wants no peace, only more weapons and money".
On 10 January 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revoked the Ukrainian citizenship of Taras Kozak, Renat Kuzmin, Viktor Medvedchuk, and Andrii Derkach, former lawmakers from the banned Opposition Platform - For Life party faction. The decision was taken "based on evidence presented by the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) and the State Migration Service of Ukraine (SMSU)".
Under the Constitution of Ukraine, revocation of citizenship also entails the termination of parliamentary powers, so the following day, the Ukrainian parliament deprived these lawmakers of their mandates.
Viktor Medvedchuk filed a case with Ukraine's Supreme Court a month later, on 20 February 2023. In his lawsuit, he demanded that Ukrainian citizenship be returned to him and his former associates. Medvedchuk claimed that the presidential decree terminating his citizenship had been "illegal, groundless, arbitrary and adopted in violation of the Constitution of Ukraine".
The Supreme Court accepted the claim in March 2023 and opened proceedings in the case, with hearings continuing to this day.
Judging by the Supreme Court's rulings in the court register, Medvedchuk first brought a case against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and later the SSU and the SMSU were included as third parties.
The SSU filed a motion to close the case on 25 January 2024. They described Medvedchuk's lawsuit as a sham.
As journalists learned from their sources, it is likely that after the files on the revoking of Medvedchuk's citizenship were sent to the president, the SSU cited the oligarch's Russian citizenship as the reason for the decision. Moreover, Medvedchuk was sent to Russia as part of a prisoner-of-war swap, meaning that Russia recognised his status as a prisoner of war.
The SSU also informed the court that Medvedchuk had disassociated himself from Ukraine, sided with Russia, considered himself part of the Russian people, echoed Putin's claims about the reasons for Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and used all political opportunities at his disposal to derail Ukraine's efforts to maintain its independence.
The SSU added that it had provided written explanations to the court on 5 September 2023 stating that it had "appropriate and admissible evidence" to terminate Medvedchuk's citizenship.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court denied the SSU's motion to discontinue the case on 25 January 2024. However, during the same hearing, the court ruled to request copies of the evidence on the revoking of Viktor Medvedchuk's Ukrainian citizenship from the SSU.
In addition to his citizenship, Medvedchuk is seeking to regain his parliamentary mandate and, simultaneously, to get rid of the economic sanctions imposed by the NSDC in 2021. His representatives have also filed lawsuits with the Supreme Court on these issues.
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