The Ukrainian parliament is expected to strip four lawmakers from banned pro-Kremlin parties of their mandates at its next meeting, David Arakhamia, head of President Volodymyr Zelensky's Servant of the People faction in parliament, said on Jan. 11.
Arakhamia did not specify their names.
Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelensky stripped four pro-Kremlin lawmakers of Ukrainian citizenship. These are Andriy Derkach, Taras Kozak, Renat Kuzmin, and Viktor Medvedchuk.
Medvedchuk, a major ally of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, was a co-leader of the Opposition Platform-For Life, a pro-Russian party that was banned in March 2022.
He was charged with high treason and placed under house arrest in 2021. Medvedchuk fled after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 and was re-arrested in April.
In September he was handed over to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange.
Kozak from the Opposition Platform-For Life is a close ally of Medvedchuk. He was also charged with high treason in 2021.
Derkach, who is wanted by the Ukrainian authorities, was charged with high treason and illicit enrichment in September. Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court issued an arrest warrant for him in absentia in October.
According to the authorities, Derkach had received funds from a Russian intelligence agency to create private security firms that Russia planned to use for capturing Ukraine.
Kuzmin was a deputy prosecutor general in 2006-2013, achieving notoriety under pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.
He left Ukraine after Yanukovych was ousted by the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2014 and returned in 2019, becoming a lawmaker from the pro-Kremlin Opposition Platform-For Life party. He was charged with treason in October 2022.
