Ukraine says a political ally of Putin has been detained in a ‘special operation.’
Ukraine’s security service said on Tuesday that officers had detained Viktor Medvedchuk, a politician and oligarch seen as the Kremlin’s main agent of influence in Ukraine in recent years.
Mr. Medvedchuk disappeared shortly after the start of the war and the Ukrainian authorities were searching for him.
Ivan Bakanov, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, said on Facebook that officers had conducted a “lightning-fast and dangerous multilevel special operation” to detain Mr. Medvedchuk.
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said he could not confirm that Mr. Medvedchuk had been arrested, according to Russian state media. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine posted a photo on Telegram that appeared to show Mr. Medvedchuk in handcuffs.
Mr. Medvedchuk’s arrest would be a significant blow to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who is reported to be the godfather to Mr. Medvedchuk’s daughter and counts him as one of his closest allies in Ukraine.
A longtime influential player in politics and business between Ukraine and Russia, he was an adviser in the office of President Leonid Kuchma after Ukraine’s independence and took part in negotiations with separatists in eastern Ukraine after Russia annexed Crimea.
Before the war, Mr. Medvedchuk had been under house arrest on suspicion of treason, attempted looting of national resources, and aiding and abetting a terrorist organization, according to local media.
A Ukrainian official, Mykhailo Podolyak, a member of Ukraine’s delegation for peace talks in Istanbul, said on Twitter that Mr. Medvedchuk had “regularly lied about the situation” in Ukraine, and “stole money and eventually became one of the initiators of the war.”
Oleksandr Chubko contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.
The evidence belies Putin’s claim that Bucha atrocities are ‘fake.’
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Tuesday called the evidence of Russian atrocities in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha “fake,” denying the accounts, details, and images uncovered by journalists and other investigators since Russian forces left the region.
The evidence gathered from local officials and scores of witnesses in Bucha shows execution-style murders of civilians and suggests Russian soldiers killed recklessly and sometimes sadistically.
Mr. Putin spoke at a news conference alongside the president of Belarus at a spaceport in Russia’s the Far East. Asked about the atrocities in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Mr. Putin did not offer evidence or give details on what he called an orchestrated “provocation.”
Earlier in the news conference, Mr. Lukashenko offered his own version, claiming, without providing evidence, that British operatives had organized the killings. “We discussed in detail this psychological special operation that the English carried out,” Mr. Lukashenko said, referring to Bucha.
Journalists from The New York Times have visited Bucha, documenting dozens of killings of civilians and interviewing scores of witnesses to uncover the scale of Russian atrocities.
As the Russian advance on Kyiv stalled in the face of fierce resistance, civilians said, the enemy occupation of Bucha slid into a campaign of terror and revenge. When a defeated and demoralized Russian Army finally retreated, it left behind dead civilians strewn on streets, in basements, or in backyards. Many had gunshot wounds to their heads, and some had their hands tied behind their backs.
Reporters and photographers for The New York Times spent more than a week with city officials, coroners, and scores of witnesses in Bucha, uncovering new details of execution-style killings.
The Times documented the bodies of almost three dozen people where they were killed — in their homes, in the woods, set on fire in a vacant parking lot — and learned the story behind many of their deaths. The Times also witnessed more than 100 body bags at a communal grave and the city’s cemetery.
Unsuspecting civilians were killed carrying out the simplest of daily activities. A retired teacher known as Auntie Lyuda was shot on March 5 as she opened her front door on a small side street.
Her younger sister Nina, who was mentally disabled and lived with her, was dead on the kitchen floor. It was not clear how she died. “They took the territory and were shooting so no one would approach,” a neighbor, Serhiy, said. “Why would you kill a grandma?”
