Medvedchuk and Poroshenko jointly profited off the war – Zelenskyi

President Volodymyr Zelenskyi commented on the so-called "Medvedchuk tapes," saying that Putin's fellow sponsor, together with then-President Petro Poroshenko, was making money off of the war.

Zelenskyi stated this in an interview for the VIP program with Natalia Moseichuk.

"I heard several fragments of these tapes. As for the situation, it seems to me that we showed our reaction. It's not news to me what happened. We all knew about it. We didn't have tapes, but there was a lot of different information from the SBU, and intelligence. We understand how it happened, we understand that Mr. Medvedchuk traded with terrorists, separatists, and earned money together with the 5th president or his people, and we understand perfectly well that Ukraine bought coal through Russia. It was exported," he said.

Zelenskyi said that his confidence in Medvedchuk and Poroshenko making money off of coal was based on the information he had. The involvement of law enforcement agencies and Medvedchuk's current whereabouts also testifies to Putin's involvement in the deals.

According to the president, the fact that Poroshenko gave Medvedchuk the authority to negotiate just shows that no one wanted an end to the war. At the same time, Zelenskyi believes that Poroshenko still cannot realize that he's no longer "someone in politics."

"I'm not interested in him. I wasn't interested in him, even when he was president. At first, we supported him, we wanted changes in Ukraine. He's no longer someone in politics, but, unfortunately, he's not ready to realize that. And all these terrible records, I believe that these phone calls are a betrayal of the state, and what he did when he gave Medvedchuk all the power to negotiate shows that no one was interested in ending the war.

I wanted to say sharply when they talk about red lines. So they crossed not red, but bloody lines. That is, they profited off the death of the military. This is my opinion, it's not a court verdict," Zelenskyi said.