Leaked paperwork revealed that had already thought of two totally different folks for the position of leaders within the newly acquired territories of , ought to his invasion of the nation go forward as deliberate.
In line with paperwork leaked to Ukrainska Pravda, the primary particular person thought of to run was Viktor Medvedchuk, to whose daughter Putin is the godfather.
Medvedchuk served as 's fundamental negotiator with the Kremlin and dealt with prisoner swaps in earlier than 's time period.
However underneath Zelensky, he ended up underneath the investigation of Ukrainian legislation enforcement officers.
He was placed on home arrest for suspected state treason at first of 2022.
Stories present that Ukrainian intelligence later suspected that Medvedchuk was conscious of Putin's plans to invade and was "ready for him" to again his technique and run the nation.
However he disappeared as quickly because it was clear Ukrainian troops had been holding the fort in Kyiv.
Putin's plan B at that time was to provide energy to Viktor Yanukovych, former Ukrainian Prime Minister till 2014 when he was faraway from workplace within the Revolution of Dignity and he fled the nation.
An official from the time of Yanukovych's presidency claimed: "Belief me, the Russians wager on the 'non-critical import' – the return to of all those that fled the nation after 2014. There are sufficient deserters to workers a number of governments. In the event that they got here again, it will have been sufficient to nominate a number of of them to key positions, after which the wheels of the system would begin turning and lower-rank positions would get crammed."
Yanukovych flew to Minsk in Belarus but additionally later vanished from the general public's eye as rapidly as he had reappeared.
Ukrainska Pravda wrote: "It's now tough to contemplate these plans as something aside from second-rate sci-fi. In early February 2022, nonetheless, actual efforts had been made in preparation to implement each."
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