President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on Tuesday evening that based on information sent by special services, he decided to strip the Ukrainian citizenship of four deputies, including a businessman close to Vladimir Putin, Viktor Medvedchuk, who was arrested by Kyiv and handed over to Moscow as part of a prisoner exchange, News.ro reports. .

“On the basis of the materials prepared by the Security Service of Ukraine and the State Migration Service of Ukraine and in accordance with the Constitution of our country, I made a decision to terminate the citizenship of four persons: Andriy Leonidovych Derkatsi, Taras Romanovych Kozak, Renat Raveliyovych Kuzmin. and Viktor Volodymyrovych Medvedchuk,” Volodymyr Zelenskyi said at the end of the video message he sent to his compatriots, as he does every evening.

“If people’s deputies decide to serve not the people of Ukraine, but criminals who came to Ukraine, our actions will be appropriate,” Volodymyr Zelenskyi said about the four businessmen-deputies accused of spying for Russia. .

“And these are not the last decisions of this kind. The services are working,” the Ukrainian president added, assuming that other agents of Moscow would also be exposed.

Who are these four?

Andrii Leonidovych Derkatsi has been a People’s Deputy of Ukraine since 1998, served seven mandates and ran for several parties. In 2021, the United States government accused him of being a “Russian agent” and sanctioned him for meddling in the 2020 US election, and the Ukrainian government sanctioned him for spreading Russian propaganda. In June 2022, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said that Derkatsi received funds from the Russian military (GRU) to create private security companies that Russia planned to use during the invasion of Ukraine.

Taras Romanovych Kozak is a businessman and media owner, a close associate of the pro-Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk. In June 2019, Kozak created a holding company that included three TV channels that were later closed for serving Russian propaganda. Kozak also controlled a group of coal mines in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that were not under government control and whose profits helped fund pro-Russian militants. On January 20, 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department also sanctioned Kozak for acting under the direction of agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). It is believed that the oligarch is in Belarus.

As for Renat Kuzmin, he was the first deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine in 2010-2013, during the time of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, removed from power by Euromaidan. At that time, he was investigating ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, one of the opposition figures. After 2014, he was wanted by the Ukrainian police for abuse, he hid until he became a deputy in 2019.

68-year-old Viktor Medvedchuk is a pro-Kremlin politician who has been called the “dark prince” of Ukrainian politics. In April, he was arrested in Ukraine for treason, and in September he was handed over to Russia during a prisoner exchange. Putin is the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter, Daria, and would be one of the leader’s pawns in the Kremlin believed to be involved in leading Ukraine after Putin’s “special operation” ousted Volodymyr Zelensky as head of state. in February 2022.

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