THE Wife of a friend of Vladimir Putin detained in Ukraine has demanded that he be exchanged for a hero British soldier detained by the Russians.

Viktor Medvedchuk, 67, was kidnapped in a raid by Ukrainian security agents, while Aidan Aslin, 28, was fighting in the besieged city of Mariupol.

Aidan, a brave soldier, surrendered when his unit ran out of food and ammo in the city, and was displayed on Russian television on Thursday with a gash across his forehead and one eye half-closed.

Oxana Marchenko, Medvedchuk’s wife, has now produced a video address requesting that her husband and Aidan be switched.

She also cites another Brit, Shaun Pinner, in the tape, however there has been no confirmation that he has also been kidnapped by the Russians.

“I, Oxana Marchenko, wife of opposition leader and Ukrainian people’s representative Viktor Medvedchyuk, address the family of detained British residents Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner,” she adds.

“It is in your power to ask the PM of your country Boris Johnson to influence Ukrainian leadership and to achieve Aiden’s and Shaun’s release by their exchange for….my husband Viktor Medvedchyuk.”

Marchenko is a former TV celebrity who presented ‘X-Factor Ukraine,’ and he has also requested his release from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Medvedchuk has identified Putin as a “personal friend,” and he is the godfather to Putin’s daughter. The two have even vacationed together.

He was the Kremlin’s most trusted and prominent lieutenant in Ukraine as the leader of the country’s major pro-Moscow party, the Opposition Platform For Life.

Medvedchuk was held under house arrest last year after being charged with treason and terrorism funding, all of which he rejects.

However, he escaped just a few days after Russia started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

When investigators proceeded to Medvedchuk’s residence, they discovered a duplicate of a vintage Pullman railway coach, lavishly adorned with gross gold.

The heinous show was concealed by a tarpaulin.

While his $200 million, 305-foot yacht, The Royal Romance, was confiscated in the Croatian port of Rijeka last month under a round of penalties imposed by the US in January.

Aiden, originally from Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, surrendered his guns alongside Ukraine’s 36th Marines after defending the port city for six weeks.

Shaun, a former Royal Anglian Regiment soldier, was reported to be fighting alongside the Ukrainians in early March.

His family has pleaded with the authorities to do everything possible to bring him home.

There are worries that Aiden will now be exploited as a propaganda weapon by despot Vladimir Putin.

Aiden, who was supposed to marry his Ukrainian fiancee this month, has already been accused of working for “Western intelligence.”

“Aiden Aslin is a subject of Great Britain,” his interrogator on Rossiya 1 military reporter Andrey Rudenko reminded viewers.

“He is an English mercenary who fought for the Nazis in Ukraine.”

Rudenklo issued a grim threat, saying, “I am confident that he will be able to shed light on the acts of Western intelligence services in Ukraine.”