MOSCOW, January 23. /TASS/. Yulia Timoshenko, leader of the opposition Batkivshchyna party and former Ukrainian prime minister, has confirmed reports that a sum of $760,000 has been posted as bail in her case.
"I have no words to express my gratitude for helping me pay this draconical, unbearable sum," she wrote on he Facebook account (Facebook is banned in Russia due to its ownership by Meta, which has been designated as extremist).
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) earlier charged Timoshenko with trying to bribe Verkhovna Rada (parliament) lawmakers. On January 16, a court in Kiev set bail at 33.3 million hryvnia (approximately $760,000) for Yulia Timoshenko. Later, the Ukrainskaya Pravda media outlet said, citing its sources in law enforcement agencies, that only part of the sum had been paid. Timoshenko said that her entire team was working to raise the funds. It was reported on Friday that the entire sum had been posted.
Another court hearing on her case where she planned to appeal this measure of restraint will be held on January 26.
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.
Timoshenko already served prison time under Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich. On October 11, 2011, she was sentenced to seven years behind bars for exceeding the authority of her office while holding gas talks with Russia. She was released from prison by a Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) resolution on February 22, 2014 after the state coup in Kiev. She spent a little more than two years in prison.