Viktor Medvedchuk's wife, Oksana Marchenko, is the beneficiary of companies that transferred large sums to the accounts of structures of the Russian Guard and the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in Crimea, the SBU reports . According to the intelligence service, firms from Kyiv and Yalta thus paid for the protection of Medvedchuk's assets on the occupied peninsula.
“In addition, Marchenko’s business structure regularly replenished the Russian budget in the form of paying taxes and fees,” the SBU said in a statement. The total amount paid in favor of Russia is estimated at 50 million hryvnia (about 96 million rubles).
As the investigation established, Marchenko registered a company in Yalta with an authorized capital of a billion rubles, using the assets of three investment companies in Kyiv for this. Then the Crimean company signed security contracts with the structures of the National Guard and the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The scheme continued to work after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
During the investigation, SBU officers searched 11 properties owned by Marchenko, in the offices of Kyiv companies and the homes of their top managers. Medvedchuk's wife and the head of a Yalta firm are suspects in a case of financing actions committed with the aim of forcibly changing power or changing state borders.
Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, also known as Vladimir Putin's godfather, was detained by the SBU in April 2022 after he escaped from house arrest. He was accused of high treason and attempted embezzlement of national resources in Crimea.
In September, Medvedchuk was exchanged for the defenders of Azovstal. President Volodymyr Zelensky later stripped him of his Ukrainian citizenship.