The Aug. 5 arrest of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko triggers street protests.
The arrest of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko provoked a sharp reaction abroad and at home, with hundreds of her supporters hitting the streets.
Western governments urged authorities to consider setting her free. Critics view the charges against her as politically motivated to remove President Viktor Yanukovych’s top rival from upcoming elections.
After weeks of hearings where she stands accused of abuse of office while premier in 2009, Judge Rodion Kireyev ordered her arrested for contempt of court on Aug. 5.
By that evening, supporters had already thrown up more than 20 tents on the sidewalk in downtown Kyiv outside the court. When the trial resumed on Aug. 8, more than 1,000 demonstrators gathered around a stage. They chanted, waved flags and cheered.
The scenes were far smaller and less energized than the Orange Revolution, but for some resembled the epic 2004 event that made Tymoshenko a heroine for leading hundreds of thousands of people in standing up to a rigged Nov. 21 election then and denying Yanukovych the presidency.
Several hundred protesters and a similar number of police officers take to Khreshchatyk Street, Kyiv’s main thoroughfare, on Aug. 10. (Alexey Furman)
Viktor Yushchenko won a re-vote against Yanukovych on Dec. 26, 2004.
Six years later, fortunes have been reversed.
Yanukovych is president after narrowly beating Tymoshenko in a 2010 presidential contest. She is fighting to survive politically and stay out of jail.
Since the trial began in June, Tymoshenko has repeatedly defied Kireyev, calling him a puppet of the presidential administration.
Political analysts said protests are unlikely to mushroom into revolution, given widespread disappointment with the results of the leaders who ruled
Ukraine for five years after the Orange Revolution, including Yushchenko and, as prime ministers, Yanukovych and Tymoshenko. Disillusionment with politicians is high from all sides.
But the rapid negative reaction from Western capitals in response to Tymoshenko’s arrest is putting pressure on Yanukovych. Even Ukrainian officials are now suggesting that the arrest could harm relations.
On Aug. 10, Deputy Prime Minister Sergiy Tigipko told a German newspaper that the arrest had complicated negotiations over free-trade and association agreements with the European Union.
Prosecutors accuse Tymoshenko of abusing her power as prime minister in 2009 by ordering state energy firm Naftogaz to sign a contract with Russia’s Gazprom that prosecutors allege was against the national interest.
If convicted, she faces imprisonment for up to 10 years and would be barred from holding public office.
The decision to jail Tymoshenko during the trial came after another day of standoffs in the courtroom, where she openly mocked Prime Minister Mykola Azarov for speaking Russian in court instead of Ukrainian. On her Twitter micro-blog, Tymoshenko wrote that she would request an interpreter for him.
Since the trial began in June, Tymoshenko has repeatedly defied Kireyev, calling him a puppet of the presidential administration.
Police officers in riot gear clear a path through crowds of protesters for a prison car transporting former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from court to a detention center on Aug. 10. (Alexey Furman)
Tymoshenko accuses the judge of not giving her a fair chance to defend herself against the charges, by refusing to allow her witnesses to appear in court and interfering in her questioning of witnesses called by the prosecution.
Kireyev ordered her detained by police, who escorted her to an armored truck that drove her to the Lukyanivska detention center after riot police shoved supporters out of its path.
As the trial resumed on Aug. 8, a rally of several hundreds of supporters were taking place outside the courtroom demanding her release. The crowd spilled across both sides of Khreshchatyk Street, Kyiv’s main thoroughfare, jamming the underpass beneath.
A decade ago, she was freed from jail by a judge and emerged as a major opposition force, eventually leading the Orange Revolution.Tymoshenko and her supporters have urged people to hit the streets and protest in an attempt to repeat that success.
Some protestors held portraits of Tymoshenko; other waved the flags of her party, a red heart on a white background.
A stage was erected for speakers, including Tymoshenko’s right-hand man Oleksandr Turchynov.
The Kyiv Post counted about 1,000 police officers inside and outside more than 30 buses that lined the street.
In their full uniform of high rubber boots, helmets and protective vests, some ate ice cream, while others watched journalists and protesters curiously.
Alongside the pro-Tymoshenko protests stood a neatly organized anti-Tymoshenko gathering behind large black banners decrying her actions.
Speakers with loudspeakers from both camps competed to be heard. While Tymoshenko’s supporters mingled, her opponents stood in neat rows, waving flags in unison.
Each camp claimed that the other’s protestors had been paid to turn up, which each side in turn denies.
The courtyard outside the Pechersk District Court was filled with journalists and politicians. Opposition politicians, including former Verkhovna Rada speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk, put their names to a declaration condemning political persecution.
Inside the courtroom, which was packed with diplomats, opposition lawmakers and church leaders, the judge refused three motions filed by Tymoshenko’s lawyer to free her on bail.
As the week wore on, protesters thinned out, numbering several hundred on the evening of Aug. 10, but the police presence remained impressive.
As the jail car emerged from court to take her back to the detention center, around 50 riot police ran alongside in a protective cordon, as hundreds of others formed a barrier along Khreshchatyk.
Tymoshenko is being held in the same cell as when she was detained for several weeks in 2001 on charges of forgery and smuggling, dating back to when she headed a natural gas trading company in the mid-1990s.
Even Russia weighed in, saying that the gas deal “was in accordance with the laws of both countries and international agreements.” Analysts said the Kremlin wants to protect the gas contract and prevent any attempt by the Ukrainian government to break it off.
During this period of time, she became spectacularly wealthy as a protege of ex-Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, now serving a U.S. prison sentence after being convicted of money laundering and other financial crimes.
A decade ago, she was freed from jail by a judge and emerged as a major opposition force, eventually leading the Orange Revolution.
Tymoshenko and her supporters have urged people to hit the streets and protest in an attempt to repeat that success.
But analysts are skeptical.
“People are disappointed in all politicians, including Tymoshenko. Her negative rating is around 70 percent,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta think-tank.
If dissent within Ukraine has done little to worry the authorities, the chorus of disapproval from Western governments is a warning shot that relations, which Yanukovych has been keen to strengthen, are souring.
The U.S. government repeated earlier warnings that the trial against Tymoshenko looked like selective justice, and urged that her “incarceration be reviewed and consideration be given to her immediate release.” The European Union said it was “extremely concerned” by the arrest.
Even Russia weighed in, saying that the gas deal “was in accordance with the laws of both countries and international agreements.” Analysts said the Kremlin wants to protect the gas contract and prevent any attempt by the Ukrainian government to break it off.
While the government assured that the arrest would not affect attempts to pursue closer ties with Europe, including signing a free trade agreement, Tigipko, the deputy prime minister, told the German financial daily Handelsblatt that “the trial against Tymoshenko is naturally complicating the negotiating process.”
Political analyst Volodymyr Kornilov said the government did not expect such a strong reaction from abroad, and now seems at a crossroads without an immediate plan.
“On the one hand, to close the case and free Tymoshenko means losing face for the ruling party. On the other hand, to jail Tymoshenko means spoiling relations not only with the West but with Russia as well,” Kornilov said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can be reached at [email protected]. Mark Rachkevych and Oksana Markina contributed to this story.
