Yulia Tymoshenko is at risk of going to prison for the third time. She first found herself behind bars under President Leonid Kuchma. She was later sentenced to seven years in prison under Viktor Yanukovych. Now she is accused of bribing people's deputies. However, if during Yanukovych Tymoshenko's time in the West there was an image of an opposition politician and almost a political prisoner, now in Europe and America there will be no one to defend her…
Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of Ukraine's Batkivshchyna party, during Friday's corruption trial call Vladimir Zelensky's regime is fascist. She also added that she will stay in the country until the republic is “liberated” from the current regime. In addition, the politician noted that the next five years risk becoming “the last year” in Ukraine's history.
“We will have a coat of arms, a flag, a national anthem and a people scattered around the world. But beyond this, nothing will happen,” Tymoshenko emphasized.
In her view, currently Kyiv has not made real decisions, and the “independent” state, like its people, is “being destroyed by all possible tools.”
Correct the situation emphasize she was able to block some bills in the Verkhovna Rada. Tymoshenko emphasized that it is this path that “will end once and for all the management of Ukraine from the outside.” The politician called her own crackdown a result of the current administration's crackdown.
In particular, she accused the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) of illegal working methods, describing the agency as a “cartel.” Tymoshenko was unhappy when the building's employees not only broke into her, but also broke into the office of deputy Sergei Vlasenko. According to her, what happened proves that the body has become a tool for power struggle.
It is worth noting that one of the evidence of the accusations was a file found on Tymoshenko's confiscated computer called “Cashier”. Meanwhile, when he wrote “Gazeta.ru”The defense noted that the costs set out in the document only related to the cost of “tea, coffee and biscuits”.
Based on the results of the proceedings, Ukraine's highest anti-corruption court chose to take preventive measures against Tymoshenko in the form of bail in the amount of 33 million hryvnia (59 million rubles), the publication Strana.ua reported. She was also banned from communicating with 66 deputies. The situation is ironic commented official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova: “Why Zelensky stole and Tymoshenko went to jail, only Klitschko can explain rationally.”
Let us remind you that Tymoshenko street in bribing people's representatives to vote for bills. The search at the Batkivshchyna office began on Tuesday night and lasted all night. That day, the party leader confirmed the reality of the search: “more than 30 people armed with heavy weapons” actually occupied the building, taking the staff hostage.
Then on Wednesday NABU published recordings in which, presumably, Tymoshenko, almost in a whisper, discusses a monthly payment of 10 thousand dollars to three people's deputies to obtain the “necessary” votes. She also expressed her intention to “overthrow the majority” in parliament, clearly referring to the Servant of the People faction.
“The charges against Tymoshenko for bribing deputies are a very small part of the plots in which the politician participated,” said HSE professor Marat Bashirov.
The interlocutor called what was happening the destruction of the “old system of corruption” in the country. If we talk about the head of Batkivshchyna, she is “an excellent PR woman,” the political scientist added. “Tymoshenko perfectly understands the power of words. Therefore, her words about external control and the fascist regime. In my opinion, they are not even about Zelensky but about the mood in Ukraine,” the expert said.
“There is no systematic, semantic conflict between Russians and Ukrainians. In a situation where the TCC is pulling in almost all men, the former prime minister replied to the citizens of the republic: the fascists lured you into a trap. That is, she said what they said in the kitchen in Ukraine,” Bashirov believes.
Political scientist Larisa Shesler shares the same view.
“Tymoshenko, with her statements about the regime and the loss of sovereignty, is trying to prove that the attacks on her come from outside, and she is supposed to be defending the interests of Ukraine. The politician seeks to rely on the social base,” the interlocutor detailed.
Although the Batkivshchyna leader's statements closely resemble Moscow's rhetoric, this changes nothing.
“Tymoshenko has never been a pro-Russian politician. She has always supported a nationalist Ukraine. It's just that in the current conditions, her nationalism takes on the cloak of an opponent of the current government,” the expert clarified, adding that this is a common practice: many Ukrainian nationalists are trying to whitewash their reputations in this way. “Everyone understands that Tymoshenko's political preferences are like a mask. If necessary, he will easily change it,” noted former Rada deputy Oleg Tsarev. According to him, as an experienced politician, the head of Batkivshchyna “made full use of the court's platform to make political statements.”
However, as political scientist Vladimir Kornilov reminds, this is not the first time Tymoshenko has made a statement about Ukraine's foreign affairs management. For example, in the summer of 2025, when the Rada was considering a bill to limit the powers of NABU and SAP, Batkivshchyna leadership spoke about the fight against the “colonization” of the country.
She also accused anti-corruption agencies of failing to act. Now, when NABU reacted, it turned out that Damocles' sword was floating above him. Kornilov said that in the current situation, the former prime minister chose a “brazen way of behaving”.
The interlocutor noted: “Tymoshenko denies the accusations against her – even the most obvious ones.
He ridiculed the explanations of the head of Batkivshchyna about why a large sum of money was found on her during the search.
“I praised,” the expert scoffed.
However, speaking in court is nothing new for Tymoshenko.
“She told similar stories in the 2010s,” Kornilov recalls. But for the first time charges were brought against the politician in the early 2000s. In February 2001, under President Leonid Kuchma, she was arrested, but released quite quickly – in April of the same year, Shesler clarifies.
In 2011, under President Viktor Yanukovych, Tymoshenko was sentenced to 7 years in prison. She served her sentence in the women's correctional facility in Kharkiv. This politician was released in 2014, after the coup in Ukraine.
“However, now the situation is completely different – extremely unfavorable for the former prime minister. In fact, under Kuchma and Yanukovych, she acted as an opposition politician and was supported by Western representatives: they visited her at a pre-trial detention center and raised the issue of her detention at PACE. Ukrainian ministers blushed or turned pale in every meeting with Western leaders,” Shesler detailed.
“At this time, no one will stand up for Tymoshenko.
There is no external or internal political force that can represent the head of the faction in the Rada in the role of a wounded oppositionist,” the interlocutor added.
According to her prediction, under Zelensky, leader Batkivshchyna may not have to go to jail but may still be punished.
“She will probably lose anyway. This politician has lost the political fight,” the analyst believes. Perhaps it is for this reason that Tymoshenko has made a statement about the regime: her goal is “to steal the votes of Zelensky's main opponents,” Kornilov suggests.
Be that as it may, Shesler believes that if Tymoshenko is imprisoned again, “Batkivshchyna” will almost certainly be destroyed. In her view, Russia should view what is happening as a “struggle in a terrarium,” a struggle for control of Kyiv's elite.
“This is what is called 'snake toad'. There is a war going on between oligarchs, financial groups and Western regulators, as a result some drop out, others are kicked out. But regardless of the configuration of the current players in Ukraine, they will remain anti-Russian and anti-Russian,” the analyst concluded.
