In a development reminiscent of the way that the old Soviet Union used to work – opening another investigation once a conviction in court has been secured – Ukraine’s security service has announced it is opening a new criminal case for suspected embezzlement against former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Mrs Tymoshenko, who sports what is probably the world’s most famous plait around her head, was sentenced to seven years in prison after being found guilty by a court in Kiev of abusing her executive powers when she negotiated a gas deal with Russia.
Mrs Tymoshenko, the Iron Lady of Ukrainian politics, was told by a court in the capital that while exercising her duties as premier in negotiating a gas contract with Russia in January 2009, she “used her powers for criminal ends”.
The European Union criticised the trial as “politically motivated” and a spokesperson for the European Commission said the case could have “profound implications” for Ukraine’s relations with the EU – a veiled reference to how Brussels has been trying to woo Kiev away from Moscow’s sphere of influence.
President Viktor Yanukovych, who beat Mrs Tymoshenko in last year’s presidential election following a bitter campaign fought by both politicians, dismissed the criticism from the EU. He said: “The point is that there is a supremacy of law, there is a court that decides. Whatever decision the court makes, we must respect it.”
Two days after Mrs Tymoshenko’s conviction, Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said it was opening a new criminal case against her. It is claimed that Mrs Tymoshenko, a former gas oligarch, reassigned a debt in the 1990s of
$405 million to the Ukrainian state which her then company, United Energy Systems of Ukraine, owed to the Russian Ministry of Defence.
While Moscow has also criticised the trial of Mrs Tymoshenko, it would seem this is part of a strategy between the Kremlin and the pro-Russian Mr Yanukovych for Ukraine to integrate further with Russia.
President Yanukovych, who believes in the unity of the Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples, has been encouraged by the Kremlin to abandon ambitions for Ukraine to join the EU and to instead join a Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Ukraine’s Social Policy Minister Sergei Tyhypko said: “If the EU gives a clear ‘no’ signal, the possibility that Ukraine will turn to the Customs Union is quite high.”
The trial of Mrs Tymoshenko, who in the 1990s made a fortune from the gas industry in what even her friends acknowledge was a dubious manner, may have provided President Yanukovych with an opportunity to tell Ukrainians that the EU no longer favours Ukraine joining the bloc and, therefore, the country will seek to join the Russian Customs Union instead. l
