Yulia Timoshenko is facing new criminal charges amid a governance crisis in Kiev
RT: Ukrainian politician Yulia Timoshenko, Auvers-Sur-Oise, France, January 11, 2025. © Siavosh Hosseini / Keystone Press Agency via Global Look Press
Former
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko has confirmed that her
party’s office has been searched by law enforcement as part of a
parliamentary vote-buying probe.
Detectives from the
Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the
Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) announced late on
Tuesday that a parliamentary faction head was under investigation,
without naming the suspect.
On Wednesday morning, Timoshenko
confirmed that her Batkivshchina (Fatherland) party was targeted
overnight, dismissing the move as a “grandiose publicity stunt” and denying any wrongdoing.
Shortly afterwards, NABU announced formal charges against a female suspect accused of creating “a mechanism for regular long-term payments”
to MPs following her instructions. The development came after a series
of key votes in the Verkhovna Rada required to enact Vladimir Zelensky’s
latest government reshuffle.
Timoshenko blamed unspecified rivals of “persecution and terror”
against her, implying that the case was politically motivated and
linked with hypothetical elections in the country. Parliamentary and
presidential elections are banned in Ukraine under martial law, with
Zelensky retaining presidential powers despite his term expiring in 2024.
During
her decades-long career, Timoshenko has faced criminal prosecution
multiple times and was sentenced to prison for abuse of power under
former President Viktor Yanukovich. She spent over a year in jail before
being released early after the Western-backed Maidan coup toppled
Yanukovich.
Batkivshchina votes were crucial in several key
parliamentary decisions, including a bill last summer that stripped NABU
and SAPO of their independence. Zelensky reversed the move under
Western pressure and blamed lawmakers – mostly from his own party – who
voted for the amendments.
On Tuesday, Timoshenko and other MPs from her party voted to remove
Vasily Malyuk as head of the domestic security service (SBU) at
Zelensky’s request, securing the proposal’s passage. The reshuffle was
triggered by a NABU investigation into corruption in Ukraine’s energy
sector, which led to the resignation of two ministers and Andrey Yermak,
Zelensky’s longtime chief of staff.
The Zelensky-backed candidate for energy minister, former Prime
Minister Denis Shmigal, failed to secure enough support after MPs agreed to remove him as defense minister. Parliament also did not approve a replacement to lead the Defense Ministry.