Timoshenko accused of corrupt dealings with Russia

An irresistible tabloid story for Eastern bloc news junkies is in the making. Yulia Timoshenko, prime minister of Ukraine’s anti-Moscow Orange Revolution government has been accused of “high treason and corruption” in connection with secret dealings with the Russian government reports Kommersant.

Timoshenko shocked Ukraine and Russia when she voiced her support for the Russian side in the Georgian conflict while Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko took great lengths to show Ukrainian solidarity beside Georgia. Up to that point, Timoshenko had been known as one of the most outspokenly anti-Russian politicians in the former Soviet Union. In June 2007 she wrote a essay for Foreign Affairs magazine entitled “Containing Russia.”

Now she is accused of accepting money from the Russian government for her presidential campaign, presumably in exchange for softening her stance towards Russia as prime minister and eventually president. President Yushchenko’s press office announced the charges in a statement August 18.

“Russia’s leaders are seriously considering supporting Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the presidential campaign once she … fulfils the condition of adopting a passive position in the conflict with Georgia,” the statement said.

Concretely, the statement also said, the Russian government has made $1 billion available for Timoshenko’s campaign.

Wow, what a turnaround. It should be noted the possibility that this is a white wash accusation made as a punishment for Timoshenko breaking with the government line on the Georgian conflict. However, I see other logical explanation for her supporting Russian action in Georgia in the first place.

It will be interesting to see if these accusations are proven, and rest assured I will be watching the process, this stuff is just too fascinating to ignore.