Who is Viktor Medvedchuk and why does his arrest matter to the Kremlin?

For an oil and media baron and longtime confidant to Putin, it was a long way to fall.

Shortly before the war began, US intelligence claimed that Medvedchuk had been tapped by the Kremlin for a puppet government in a postwar regime.

Within days of the invasion, Medvedchuk disappeared from his Kyiv house arrest, leading many to believe that Russian special forces had managed to spirit him out of the country.

But his reappearance in custody has given the Ukrainian government an unexpected bargaining chip, with officials proposing prisoner exchanges and suggesting that Medvedchuk had shared information that would make life unsafe for him in Russia.

Little has been revealed about the operation to recapture Medvedchuk. Photographs released by Ukrainian officials showed him frowning in full military camouflage and handcuffs.

The Kremlin has responded to the re-arrest by claiming that Putin has no special relationship with Medvedchuk.