Photo Gallery 'A Normal Judicial Process'
Yulia Tymoshenko during an appearance during her recent trial in Ukraine on charges of abusing the power of her office. European Union officials are hoping that current President Viktor Yanukovych will order a review of her conviction and that the judiciary will find a procedural error and repeal the verdict in the coming days.
Tymoshenko was a powerful leader and a symbol of the country's 2004 Orange Revolution. At the time, the demonstrators chanted the names of those who they hoped would lead them to a brighter future: "Yulia, Yulia" an "Yushchenko, Yushchenko." The Ukrainians continued to protest until the government gave in and new elections were held, paving way for reformer Viktor Yushchenko's victory over the country's Moscow-backed rulers. Yushchenko was elected president and Tymoshenko became his prime minister.
But it didn't take long before Tymoshenko began falling out with Yushchenko. Today, the former president defends the legal proceedings against Tymoshenko, saying: "I don't see a show trial, but rather a normal judicial process. Even politicians are not above the law."
Tymoshenko is pictured here at a signing ceremony on Jan. 19, 2009 with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that resolved yet another gas pricing dispute between Moscow and Kiev. Yushchenko says today that when he discovered that, under the deal, Ukraine was paying more than most Western European counties per cubic meter of gas, he was flabbergasted.
Of the deal, Yushchenko alleges: "I am convinced that Yulia only signed because she was to receive a significant price reduction for a specific period of time in which the elections were to take place. With her pockets full and the certainty that she had resolved a dispute, she was able to go out and woo the voters."
Under hardline President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine is today at a crossroads. Kiev can either return to a course toward greater transparency and the rule of law, and earn the European Union Association Agreement with ties to a free Europe, or will succumb to the lure of the Kremlin leadership and form, as Putin has proposed, a customs union together with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. This might result in the country paying lower gas prices than it does today, but it would also mean that Ukraine would again fall under the control of Moscow.
