Translated material
Power with consequences
Yulia Tymoshenko was given a written undertaking not to leave
The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine, having interrogated former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, decided to choose a preventive measure for her in the form of a written undertaking not to leave. A criminal case has been initiated against one of the opposition leaders under Part 3 of Art. 365 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (excess of power and official authority, resulting in grave consequences). The Prosecutor General's Office accuses Ms. Tymoshenko, who lost the presidential election to Viktor Yanukovych and was forced to resign as prime minister in March, of abusing funds from the sale of quotas under the Kyoto Protocol.“A criminal case has been opened against me personally, allegedly environmental money was used for pensions during the crisis, that I committed a big crime by paying people pensions...” Yulia Tymoshenko told reporters after interrogation. “The Budget Code clearly stipulates that protected items are paid in the budget first: pensions and salaries... But I want to testify that pensions were paid not at the expense of environmental money, but at the expense of the single treasury account.”
This is not the first interrogation of the former prime minister during the investigation of this case. On December 2, she already gave an explanation to the Prosecutor General's Office, saying that 320 million euros received from the implementation of quotas under the Kyoto Protocol are in special accounts of the Ministry of Environment, and the new government can spend these funds on environmental programs. These funds were received by the Tymoshenko government in April 2009 from the sale to Japan of 30 million units of the established amount of greenhouse gas emissions. The deal was supervised by former adviser to the Prime Minister Vitaly Gaiduk.
After the 2010 presidential elections, the government of Mykola Azarov ordered the American companies Trout Cacheris, PLLC, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer&Feld LLP, Kroll, Inc to audit the activities of their predecessors. Based on its results, conclusions were made public about the misuse of funds received from the sale of quotas under the Kyoto Protocol.
As sources told Vremya Novostey in the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, the ex-prime minister herself intends to cooperate with the investigation. She did not plan to leave Ukraine in the near future, so the undertaking not to leave would not disrupt the ex-prime minister’s work schedule.
At the same time, the activity of the Prosecutor General's Office in the investigation of the case under the Kyoto Protocol allows us to make the assumption that Viktor Yanukovych's team has changed its tactics in the fight against the opposition. Until now, investigative authorities have used repressive measures exclusively against officials who carried out the orders of the ex-prime minister. For about six months now, the former head of the Customs Service, Anatoly Makarenko, and the former first deputy chairman of Naftogaz of Ukraine, Igor Didenko, have been in the pre-trial detention center. Now Ms. Tymoshenko herself is a defendant in a criminal case.
On the other hand, the actions of the prosecutor's office may have the opposite effect and increase the popularity of the former prime minister among the population. Moreover, this is not the first time for Ms. Tymoshenko to deal with law enforcement agencies. It was with her imprisonment in the spring of 2001 that she began her independent political career. And in 2004, the Russian military prosecutor's office put Yulia Tymoshenko on the international wanted list on charges of giving bribes to employees of the Russian Ministry of Defense in 1996. Because of this, she could not even officially come to Russia when she was the chairman of the first “orange” government of Ukraine. At the end of 2005, the case against her was closed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations after she secretly communicated with Russian investigators.