Pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk has stopped taking part in the Minsk negotiations, Yevhen Marchuk, Ukraine's representative in the trilateral contact group on a Donbas settlement, has said in an interview with the BBC.
"As far as I know, he used to represent the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) at the talks and mediate on the level of presidents. The SBU has been represented by a different person for several rounds now. Medvedchuk's role as a politician and intermediary in contacts between the presidents is a different issue which does not concern the Minsk negotiations," he said.
Ukraine's representative in the humanitarian subgroup at the Donbas talks, Iryna Herashchenko, said on Facebook that in her subgroup, the SBU is represented by Yuriy Kochanov, head of the single centre for hostage release.
Viktor Medvedchuk returned to Ukrainian politics in 2018. In the spring, he announced plans to run for parliament next year, joined the For Life party and quickly became one of its leaders.
In 1997-2002, Medvedchuk was a member of parliament. For several years, he was a deputy speaker and a first deputy speaker. In 2002-2005, he was in charge of President Leonid Kuchma's administration.
The godfather of his daughter is Russian President Vladimir Putin.