Ukraine on Monday aired a video displaying Viktor Medvedchuk, a detained pro-Russia tycoon and best friend of President Vladimir Putin, searching to be exchanged in go back for an evacuation of civilians and troops from the besieged port town of Mariupol.

Mariupol has become a symbol of Ukraine’s unexpectedly fierce resistance since Russian troops invaded the previous Soviet state and the seasoned-democratic U.S.A On February 24.

“I want to ask Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to exchange me for Ukrainian defenders and residents of Mariupol,” he said in the video published by Kyiv’s security services, wearing black clothes and looking directly into the camera.

Medvedchuk, who escaped from house arrest after Russia’s invasion and was detained last week, said the troops and residents there “do not have the possibility of a safe exit through humanitarian corridors”.

Medvedchuk is one of Ukraine’s richest people and is known for his close ties to Putin. He is also a politician.

He says Putin is the godfather to his youngest daughter, Darya.

The Kremlin had earlier rejected the idea of exchanging him for Ukrainians detained by Russia, and Zelensky floated the idea of a swap.

“He is a foreign politician,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, explained last week.

Separately on Monday Russian kingdom TV broadcast a video Monday of what it described as “Britons” captured combating Ukraine disturbing that Prime Minister Boris Johnson negotiate their launch.

The men proven in the video asked to be exchanged for Medvedchuk, who had been accused of treason and attempting to scouse borrow herbal sources from Russia-annexed Crimea and of handing Ukrainian military secrets and techniques to Moscow.