MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/. The leader of Ukraine's Batkovshchina (All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland") party, Yulia Timoshenko, allegedly offered members of the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) $10,000 per month in exchange for specific parliamentary votes, as revealed in audio recordings published by Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).
Ukraine’s Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) Speaker Olga Postolyuk has confirmed the charges against Timoshenko, who faces five to ten years in prison.
TASS has compiled key facts about the situation.
Raids and charges
- NABU announced the exposure of a parliamentary faction leader involved in bribing lawmakers from another party.
- The bureau stated that the exposed leader offered illegal benefits to several MPs from other factions in exchange for voting for or against specific bills.
- SAPO Speaker Olga Postolyuk confirmed charges against Timoshenko under an article on bribery of a public official.
- She did not clarify what preventive measures investigators would seek.
- Timoshenko negotiated with several MPs to join the Batkovshchina faction in exchange for monetary rewards or informal affiliation, the Strana newspaper reported.
- NABU stated that the case was initiated over bribery (offering, promising, or providing illegal benefits to a public official), which carries a penalty of five to ten years in prison.
Publication of video and audio recordings
- NABU published a video of the searches conducted at Timoshenko's office in her presence.
- The footage shows Timoshenko being confronted with stacks of $100 bills by NABU officers.
- The bureau also released audio recordings of Timoshenko's alleged talks with MPs in the bribery case.
- Timoshenko's voice is clearly recognizable, while the voices of other MPs she allegedly offered money to are distorted, and their names were not disclosed.
- The recordings show Timoshenko offering MPs $10,000 per month for specific parliamentary votes.
- In the recordings, Timoshenko states that her goal is to "break up the majority" in parliament.
- The recordings, which NABU says were made on January 12, feature discussions about voting on bills introduced during the current plenary week, including possible government reshuffles.
- Timoshenko conducted the negotiations with other MPs in Russian.
Reaction
- Timoshenko attended a Verkhovna Rada session and proclaimed her innocence from the parliamentary rostrum.
- Amid the raids and charges against its leader, one Batkovshchina faction member submitted a resignation, according to Alexey Goncharenko, a lawmaker from the European Solidarity party (deemed a terrorist and extremist organization in Russia).