Viktor Medvedchuk

Medvedchuk's father, Volodymyr Medvedchuk, avoided being drafted into the Red Army during World War II due to his suffering from Pott disease. During Nazi Germany's occupation of Ukraine, he worked for the German administration in a labor camp from April 1942 to November 1943. The section provided enforced deportation of the local able-bodied Ukrainian youth to work in Nazi Germany. Volodymyr Medvedchuk was arrested by SMERSH on 7 August 1954 and sentenced to eight years of imprisonment and four of exile in Siberia "for participation in Ukrainian nationalistic activities."

Viktor was born in Pochet, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russian SFSR. He has claimed that his father was a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. According to his Soviet court indictment, Volodymyr Medvedchuk had "joined the counter-revolutionary organization of Ukrainian nationalists" in April 1942. In July 1995, Ukraine's military prosecutor's office reviewed the case of Volodymyr Medvedchuk and decided to rehabilitate him "In accordance with Article 1 of the Law of Ukraine of 17 April 1991 On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression in Ukraine."

In the mid-1960s, the Medvedchuks returned to the Ukrainian SSR, settling in Kornyn, Zhytomyr Oblast. In 1971, Medvedchuk graduated from high school in Borova, Fastiv Raion (Kyiv Oblast). In November 1971, Medvedchuk found a job as sorter at the Kyiv Railroad Post office factory producing periodicals. According to Dmytro Chobit, by the start of 1972, he was an overstaffed militsiya (the police of the Soviet Union) worker at the Motovylivka station (located in Borova).

In the summer of 1972, Medvedchuk successfully passed an entrance exam to the Law School of KSU Shevchenko (now the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv). However he was not admitted. On 12 September 1972, he was enrolled in the university by the Rector's order #445, based on the authorization from the Ministry of the Interior of the Ukrainian SSR. According to Dmytro Chobot, Medvedchuk was allowed to study at the university only thanks to a special recommendation from the police.

After graduation, he tried to enroll at the Higher School of Militsiya, but was rejected due to his family history. He graduated from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in 1978 as a lawyer.

Family

Medvedchuk has been married three times. He is divorced from Marina Lebedeva and Natalya Gavrilyuk. He is currently married to Oksana Marchenko, a well-known TV presenter in Ukraine. He has two daughters: Irina (born 1982) with Gavrilyuk, and Daryna (born 2004) with Marchenko. Russian president Vladimir Putin is the godfather of Daryna. Since 2021 Daryna is studying at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia.

In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Medvedchuk's brother Serhiy lost as an Opposition Platform — For Life candidate in single-seat constituency 105 (Luhansk Oblast).

Five days before the 24 February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Medvedchuk's wife, Oksana Marchenko, left for Belarus. She later published a video from Moscow. On 11 April 2023 the Ukrainian police issued an arrest warrant for Marchenko on the grounds that she was "hiding from pre-trial investigation authorities."

In February 2023 Medvedchuk confirmed that following his 21 September 2022 prisoner exchange he has lived in Moscow, Russia.

Legal career and participation in political trials against Soviet dissidents

In 1979, Medvedchuk became a member of the Shevchenkivska Legal Consultation of the Kyiv City Collegiate of Attorneys.

In 1979, Medvedchuk was the lawyer for repressed poet Yuriy Lytvyn. In his last word in court on 17 December 1979, Lytvyn described Medvedchuk's work as a lawyer: "The passivity of my lawyer Medvedchuk in defense is not due to his professional profanity, but to the instructions he received from above and his subordination: he does not dare reveal the mechanism according to which provocations were implemented against me." Lytvyn was convicted and died in prison. According to official documents, in 1979 Medvedchuk appealed the verdict against Lytvyn issued by the Vasylkiv court and referred to the incompleteness of the investigation carried out in the case to request the Kyiv Regional Court to annul the verdict and send the case for a new trial.

In 1980, Medvedchuk was appointed as a defence lawyer in the trial of dissident poet Vasyl Stus. According to the testimony of people close to Stus (his wife, and also his friend Yevgeny Sverstyuk), Stus refused to be defended by Medvedchuk, because "he immediately felt that Medvedchuk was an aggressive Komsomol type person, he didn't protect him, he didn't want to understand him, and, in fact, he was not interested in his business." Nevertheless, Medvedchuk remained Stus's lawyer despite the protests of his client.

According to the "Chronicle of Current Events", Medvedchuk's plea at the Stus trial was as follows: "The lawyer said in his speech that all of Stus's crimes deserve to be punished, but he asks to pay attention to the fact that Stus, working in 1979–1980 at the enterprises of Kyiv, fulfilled the norm; in addition, he underwent a severe stomach operation." According to Ukrainian lawyers Roman Titikalo and Ilya Kotin, Medvedchuk seems to have recognized the guilt of his client Stus during the court case. In doing so, Medvedchuk violated his professional duty as lawyer since he seemed to refuse to defend Stus, which grossly violated Stus's right to defense in court.

Stus died after he declared a hunger strike on 4 September 1985 in Perm-36, a Soviet forced labor camp for political prisoners. In a 2018 interview with The Independent, Medvedchuk claimed he could not have operated differently: "Stus denounced the Soviet government, and didn't consider it to be legitimate. Everyone decides their own fate. Stus admitted he agitated against the Soviet government. He was found guilty by the laws of the time. When the laws changed, the case was dropped. Unfortunately, he died."

In 1985, he was a lawyer at the trial of poet Mikola Kuntsevich. According to Kuntsevich's memoirs, Medvedchuk "poured more dirt on him than the prosecutor." After Medvedchuk asked the court to dismiss one of Kuntsevich's motions, he challenged him and repeated the challenge several times, but each time the court dismissed it. In his last word, Medvedchuk said: "I completely agree with a comrade prosecutor in determining the sentence. But, for reasons incomprehensible to me, comrade prosecutor forgot that the defendant had not yet left one year and nine months from the previous term. I consider it necessary to add this period to the new punishment." This request was granted by the court.

Medvedchuk founded a successful legal company, BIM, in the early 1990s. From 1990 to 1997, he was the president of the Bar Association of Ukraine. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Medvedchuk was a leading member of the Kyiv Seven, one of the three most powerful political clans in Ukrainian politics.

On 24 May 2023 Medvedchuk was stripped (disbarred) of the right to practise law in Ukraine by the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of the Bar of Kyiv Oblast. Efforts to disbar Medvedchuk had been ongoing since as early as 2016. Medvedchuk appealed his disbar, on 9 February 2024 his appeal was rejected by the Kyiv District Administrative Court. The Sixth Appeal Administrative Court upheld this decision on 11 June 2024.