Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch who is close to Vladimir Putin, found refuge in Russia after leaving Ukraine, where he faces treason charges. He runs a Russian-language portal pushing Kremlin narratives on Ukraine and the war, but his latest foray into disinformation has run into its own challenges.
Every day, new phrases hammer home messages from Another Ukraine, a Russian-language portal launched in the summer of 2023: “Russia is Ukraine’s only salvation,” “They wanted NATO and are ready to die for Western interests.” The news is uniformly negative.
The project is officially led by Viktor Medvedchuk, a leading figure pushing pro-Kremlin interests in post-Soviet Ukraine, but it is orchestrated behind the scenes by Ilya Gambashidze’s Social Design Agency, a Russian IT company closely linked to the Kremlin whose digital disinformation campaigns are now targeting international opinion. The digital platform claims to “unite the dynamic forces capable of reversing the situation and pulling the Ukrainian people out of the impasse in which they find themselves”.
Read moreIlya Gambashidze: Disinformation soldier or king of Russian trolls?
Medvedchuk is certainly no stranger to intrigue and disinformation. For 20 years, the oligarch had been a conduit for Moscow’s interests in Ukraine, in both the political sphere and the media. His close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin have made him a reviled figure in his home country. The two men, about the same age, have known each other since the early 2000s. Putin had just come to power in Russia and Medvedchuk was chief of staff for Ukraine’s then president Leonid Kuchma.
Their relationship took on a personal dimension when Medvedchuk became Putin’s “kum”, a term of kinship in Slavic culture, a link cemented when Putin was chosen as godfather to Medvedchuk’s youngest daughter.
Medvedchuk likes to emphasise this personal bond with Putin to show off his own importance.
Placed under house arrest in May 2021 after being charged with treason, he escaped and went on the run just days after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The eventual recapture of the man branded a “traitor” in Ukraine caused a sensation: dressed in camouflage clothing, disheveled and weak, Medvedchuk's release from jail was eventually granted in September 2022 when he was included in a prisoner exchange. Kyiv saw the release of 215 soldiers, including 108 from the Azov regiment captured in Mariupol, while 55 Russians were also freed. The transaction was unbalanced, but as they say in Russia, “Svoïkh nie brossaïem”: We don’t abandon our own.
'Alternative narrative'
Russia provided a refuge for Medvedchuk, as it had for another disgraced Ukrainian, former president Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych, toppled by the Maidan revolution (2013-2014), was convicted in absentia for high treason after fleeing to Russia.
Stripped of his Ukrainian nationality, Medvedchuk, 69, realised he had no future in the country. Russia's invasion of Ukraine further marginalised Ukrainian forces loyal to Moscow. The Opposition Platform–For Life party, co-founded by Medvedchuk, was banned; the three television channels he unofficially controlled were also suspended.
Putin would have been infuriated by this turn of events. “He took it as a personal affront,” said one of his longtime associates, speaking anonymously, as cited by the Russian media outlet Verstka. “Medvedchuk and his channels played the role of a bridge and offered hope for resolving the Ukraine issue through political methods.” Medvedchuk’s exile meant the Kremlin lost its key means of influence in Ukraine and the country moved further away from the Russian orbit.
According to Verstka, Medvedchuk fueled the ideological narrative the Russian leader wanted to hear, assuring him that there was enduring pro-Russia and pro-Putin feeling in Ukraine.
Medvedchuk’s misadventures in Ukraine did not mean an end to his involvement with his former country. When the Kremlin again attempted to regain control of the “Ukraine issue”, it was Medvedchuk who was given the job, with the aim of imposing an “alternative narrative”.
Despised in Ukraine, Medvedchuk is not held in high regard in Russia either. However, “Medvedchuk’s allegiance and loyalty are crucial to explain why Putin has always relied on him,” said Ukrainian journalist Maksym Savchuk, author of a book dedicated to the oligarch’s connections.
In January 2023, the former Ukrainian MP broke his silence by writing a column in the newspaper "Izvestia", where he presented the main ideas of the Russian camp. Medvedchuk positioned himself as a representative of the “peace party” against a Ukrainian elite labeled as “neo-Nazi” and belligerent, manipulated by the West. State media made an effort to bolster his stature. He appeared on Russia's Channel One, where he was presented as “one of Ukraine’s most famous opponents”.
Ukraine's 'dead end'
Despite losing all credibility as well as his media holdings in Ukraine, Medvedchuk continues to propagate disinformation and pursue his own interests. Yanukovych was considered a capable manager; Medvedchuk, on the other hand, is known as an “ideas guy”. According to Meduza journalist Andrey Pertsev, he is indebted to the Kremlin but also aims to capitalise on his status as a privileged intermediary for Putin. “He is arguing the merits of his approach to obtain funds and is negotiating new deals in Russia,” Pertsev said.
Another Ukraine is the latest outlet for Medvedchuk’s ambitions. Officially, it is a public organisation located in central Moscow, a few metres from the ministry of foreign affairs. It specialises in targeted information, which it uses to try “to interact with Ukrainians with pro-Russia convictions, inside Ukraine and beyond its borders”, according to Savchuk.
Another Ukraine's team is composed of journalists and commentators from the 112 Ukraine channel, banned in 2021 by the authorities in Kyiv, as well as disgraced political figures and “political technologists” – a Russian term for those engaged in political manipulation.
Almost all are accused in Ukraine of separatism or treason. The nature of the project remains nebulous: Another Ukraine defines itself as a “movement” with Medvedchuk as “chairman of the council”. “It seems to me that they, themselves, do not know exactly what its true purpose is,” Savchuk noted.
On the Another Ukraine website, the oligarch regularly publishes posts on Ukrainian domestic politics, the conduct of the war, and the need for an entente with Russia. However, “Medvedchuk is just the public face of this project,” said Anton Shekhovtsov, director of the Centre for Democratic Integrity in Austria. Shekhovtsov said its communications strategy was entrusted to the Social Design Agency led by Gambashidze, one of the key figures of Russian disinformation campaigns targeting an international audience.
Testing storylines
Another Ukraine aims to appeal to that part of the Ukrainian population favourable to Russia and establish a connection with it, according to Shekhovtsov. One method involves taking the pulse of this population and measuring its reaction to various narratives. The project uses the image of the Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1595-1657) monument in central Kyiv, a symbolic choice given the dual legacy of the Cossack leader: While some consider him a symbol of the Ukrainian state, Another Ukraine lauds him for seeking protection from Moscow.
In a 2021 publication of collected works, “Histoire partagée, mémoires divisées” (Shared history, divided memories), historians Volodymyr Masliychuk and Andrii Portnov note the inscription that paid homage to Khmelnytsky in Russian on the monument’s pedestal: “Russia, united and indivisible.”
The project also manages “assistance centres” for Ukrainians who are temporarily in Russia and willing to settle there permanently.
But according to Savchuk – who investigates corruption for Radio Svoboda, the leading international broadcaster in Russia and a division of US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – this new influence operation is not working. “In Ukraine, the project is seen as a collection of pariahs who Medvedchuk is feeding rubles so they will do what they used to, not so long ago, on his now-defunct television channels,” he said.
Moreover, Another Ukraine is only accessible online inside Ukraine by using a VPN (Virtual Private Network).
Nevertheless, the movement has ambitions to extend its influence beyond Ukraine and Russia. In December it announced the opening of a Serbia division – headed by Dragan Stanojevic, a pro-Russian populist MP who has long done business in Ukraine.
Savchuk described the move as a “mutually beneficial collaboration”. “For Stanojevic, this branch is a way of appearing even closer to Putin among his electorate; for Medvedchuk, it is proof that his organisation is influential and that it is taking on an international dimension," he said. "The fact that the Ukrainian government demanded its closure gave Another Ukraine even greater prominence – people started talking about it.”
But turning Medvedchuk into a respected figure, recognised as a credible interlocutor abroad, may be an overly ambitious goal.
“I don’t think the Social Design Agency will be able to improve his image, even though that would be a fundamental goal if the project is to be effective,” said Shekhovtsov. “The public face of Another Ukraine should be a personality who gives interviews to the international media, someone who people want to know better. And here, that’s not the case – not in the slightest."
This article has been translated from the original in French.
