Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is receiving an “intensive course of care” after contracting COVID-19, according to Marina Soroka, a spokesperson for her Batkivshchyna (“Fatherland”) Party.
“Yulia Volodymyrivna’s condition remains difficult,” Soroka wrote on Facebook on Aug. 25. She added that Tymoshenko had begun receiving intensive treatment the previous evening.
Soroka could not be reached for comment on Tymoshenko’s condition.
The number of COVID-19 cases in Ukraine has increased sharply in the past month. As of Aug. 25, Ukraine has identified 1,658 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours. There are currently 52,870 active cases across the country.
On Aug. 23, Soroka announced that Tymoshenko had contracted COVID-19 and said that the lawmaker was in “serious condition.”
A long-standing political actor in Ukraine, 59-year-old Tymoshenko earned the moniker “the gas princess” because of her dealings at the head of a major energy company in the 1990s.
Known for her trademark traditional braid hairstyle, she was one of the leaders of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004 against corruption and election rigging.
She was the first woman Prime Minister of Ukraine in 2005 and from 2007 to 2010, during the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko.
After running for president and losing to Viktor Yanukovych in 2010, she was imprisoned from 2011 to 2014 on abuse-of-office charges that the international community broadly regarded as politically motivated.
After Ukrainians ousted Yanukovych during the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2014, Tymoshenko was freed.
She led the Batkivshchyna party in the 2019 parliamentary election and won 26 seats in the Verkhovna Rada, making her faction the third most powerful in the Verkhovna Rada.
CORONAVIRUS IN UKRAINE: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
- Ukraine introduced four COVID-19 threat levels for cities, communities
- Ukraine extended the so-called “adaptive quarantine” until August 31.
- Ukraine entered the fourth stage of lifting quarantine on June 10.
- Indoor restaurants, domestic flights resumed on June 5, international flights on June 15
- How the Ukrainian government has been responding: TIMELINE
- Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro subways reopened on May 25.
- Why the Kyiv Post isn’t making its coverage free in the times of COVID-19.
- With international travel on hold, Ukrainians prepare to travel across Ukraine
- TripsGuard website tracks coronavirus travel restrictions in 84 nations.
- Where to buy masks.
