MOSCOW – A Russian negotiator claimed on Saturday that Moscow is considering trading captives from Ukraine’s Azov battalion for Viktor Medvedchuk, a wealthy Ukrainian businessman close to President Vladimir Putin.

“We are going to explore the idea,” Leonid Slutsky, a senior member of Russia’s negotiation team on Ukraine, told the RIA Novosti news agency from the separatist city of Donetsk in southern Ukraine.

Medvedchuk, 67, is a politician and one of Ukraine’s wealthiest men, with close links to Putin. He is a politician as well.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, he eluded house detention, only to be recaptured in mid-April.

The Russian army reported on Friday that the final defenders of Mariupol, a major port city in southeastern Ukraine, had been defeated.

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Members of the Azov regiment, a former paramilitary outfit that has merged with the Ukrainian armed forces, were among the Ukrainian combatants that surrendered to Russian troops.

The unit, which has previously been linked to far-right groups, is described by Russia as a neo-Nazi organisation.

The Russian Supreme Court is set to hear a motion to label the Azov regiment a “terrorist group” on May 26, complicating the exchange of these detainees.

Donetsk rebel leader Denis Pushilin said on Saturday that Ukrainian soldiers who guarded the Azovstal complex should face charges.

“I feel that a judicial lawsuit is unavoidable: justice must prevail,” Pushilin stated at the same news conference as Slutsky, according to Ria Novosti.