Tag: Tymoshenko

The EU's new ambassador to Kyiv will be veteran diplomat Jan Tombiński from Poland, the country most supportive of bringing forward Ukraine's integration process with the Union, EurActiv has learned.

EU ministers held an animated discussion in Brussels yesterday (14 May), evaluating the risks of “losing Ukraine to Russia” if too much pressure is put on the country over the treatment of imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

The Ukrainian prosecution will press murder charges against the country’s former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in two weeks time, Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin, responsible for her case, told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

Meeting with journalists in Brussels yesterday (25 April), Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovskiy said that if "all problems" between Ukraine and the EU were solved, the Parliament in Kyiv could pass extraordinary legislation to set former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko free from jail. 

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, serving a seven-year prison sentence on abuse-of-office charges, has dismissed new allegations of her involvement in the murder of a parliamentary deputy nearly 16 years ago. 

Ukrainian opposition politician Arsenyi Yatseniuk criticised the country's President Viktor Yanukovych for having fallen in several traps, some of them "self-created". Yatseniuk, who was himself candidate for president in 2010, has created a party, which is in alliance with the political force of jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. 

Three prominent Ukraine opposition leaders made separate appearances in Brussels in recent days, providing a rare insight into the country's political life ahead of crucial parliamentary elections due in October. 

Iceland and Ukraine, two countries that aim at joining the EU and that both had their former leaders prosecuted for abuse of authority, seem to be treated in a completely different way, writes Kost Bondarenko of the Institute of Ukrainian Politics.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian counterpart Mykola Azarov failed to achieve a breakthrough in talks yesterday (20 December) over Kiev's push for a gas price cut to help its struggling economy and soothe European supply concerns. 

Days before a crunch EU-Ukraine summit on 19 December, Kyiv is under increased pressure as Brussels urges its leaders to release political prisoners and Russia moves to take control of its gas pipeline network, diplomats told EurActiv.

A key EU-Ukraine summit planned for 19 December may have to be cancelled, diplomats told EurActiv yesterday (30 November), signalling widening divisions between Kyiv and the European Union over the imprisoning of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

If no progress is made at the upcoming EU-Ukraine summit on a trade and association agreement, the country risks failing to democratise and falling into Russia's orbit, argues Vladimir Mishchenko.

The EU should not freeze its relations with Ukraine as a result of the sentencing of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymosenko to seven years of imprisonment, Mykola Malomuzh, advisor to the president of Ukraine and former head of the foreign intelligence service told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

After several days of discrete communication between Brussels and Kyiv, following the sentencing of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, EU leaders have decided that a visit of the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovich should be 'postponed' until conditions would be more "conducive to making progress" in bilateral relations.

Ukraine's state prosecutor  asked for a seven-year jail sentence to be passed on former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko yesterday (27 September), in a trial which Brussels has warned could affect the country's hopes for closer trade ties and eventual membership of the European Union.

The ongoing trial against Ukraine's former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is not political and EU circles should not link this issue to a possible freezing of negotiations on the Free Trade Area Agreement, said Ukrainian Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin in an exclusive interview with EurActiv.

The United States has joined the EU in condemning the arrest of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, jailed for contempt of court for her behaviour during a trial on charges of abuse of power.

“The election of Victor Yanukovich is not a disaster for the European integration of [Ukraine], far from it,” Nathaniel Copsey of Birmingham's Aston University told EurActiv Slovakia in an interview.