Veteran Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko charged in bribery case
Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party, has been charged with attempting to bribe members of parliament, Olha Postolyuk, a spokesperson for the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), told Suspilne on Jan. 14.
According to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), after several lawmakers from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party were charged in December, Tymoshenko began organizing a scheme to regularly pay bribes to MPs in exchange for their votes.
NABU said the arrangement was designed as a long-term mechanism rather than a series of one-off deals, involving advance payments and ongoing cooperation. Lawmakers were allegedly instructed how to vote — and in some cases, whether to abstain or avoid participating in votes altogether.
A law enforcement source told the Kyiv Independent that the bribes were directed at members of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party.
NABU also released what it says is an instruction sent by Tymoshenko to a lawmaker, directing them to support the dismissal of Security Service (SBU) head Vasyl Malyuk, Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal, and Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. The instruction further called for voting against the appointments of Fedorov as defense minister, Shmyhal as energy minister, and Denys Maslov as justice minister.
An audio recording published by NABU allegedly captures Tymoshenko offering an advance payment of “10” per lawmaker for two parliamentary sessions each month — believed to refer to $10,000.
