Portnikov: Putin Is Making A Mistake By Befriending "the Greatest Ukrainian Nationalist"

• 30.08.2026, 10:57

It turned out that the Russian dictator wasn't joking.

At one time, Putin considered Medvedchuk a Ukrainian nationalist because Medvedchuk openly stated his position and was, in fact, one for his own benefit, explained journalist Vitaly Portnikov.

As soon as Medvedchuk found himself in Russia, he abruptly changed his stance and now writes articles claiming that “Ukrainians and Ukraine do not exist.”

Vitaly Portnikov discussed this in an interview with Evgeny Kiselev on YouTube.

“Relatively speaking, the Russian-speaking Arestovich can be just as irritating as the Ukrainian-speaking Portnikov, because, despite all his attempts to align himself with the ‘Russian World,’ he has not denied Ukraine’s right to exist—and that in itself is a crime. You surely remember that Putin once said that the greatest Ukrainian nationalist he knew was Viktor Medvedchuk. We were always amazed and thought he was joking. I think he wasn’t joking,” the political analyst opined.

“During his time as a Ukrainian politician and official, Medvedchuk defended the very idea of Ukraine’s existence as an independent state, because he wanted to hold office and embezzle funds in that independent state. For Putin, this was blasphemy, because he believed that Medvedchuk, if he was his friend, should understand that Ukraine is a fabrication of the Austrian General Staff. Incidentally, now that Medvedchuk has finally fallen into Putin’s hands following his prisoner exchange, he constantly writes articles denying the very existence of the Ukrainian state and the Ukrainian people—in other words, he is no longer a nationalist,” Portnikov noted.