MOSCOW, January 22. /TASS/. The court-appointed deadline for posting bail in the bribery case against Batkovshchina party leader Yulia Timoshenko expired at midnight Kiev time (10 p.m. GMT on January 21).
No reports of bail payment have appeared in Ukrainian media, on official websites, or on the Telegram channels of government agencies. Neither the Batkovshchina party nor the politician herself has made any mention of the matter.
The bail was set at 33.3 million hryvnia (about $760,000). Earlier, Timoshenko said that her entire team was working to raise the funds, as she did not have that amount of money herself. Ukrainska Pravda reported earlier this week, citing sources in law enforcement agencies, that more than a third of the sum, 13.65 million hryvnia (about $300,000), had already been paid.
Early on January 14, Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities searched the Batkovshchina party office in Kiev in connection with the case involving the bribery of lawmakers. Timoshenko was charged with offering illegal benefits and faces five to ten years in prison. According to audio recordings released by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), she offered lawmakers $10,000 per month to vote a certain way in parliament. On January 16, the court set bail as a preventive measure.