Yulia Tymoshenko

Yulia Tymoshenko is a Ukrainian politician. Yulia Tymoshenko was the Prime Minister of Ukraine from 24 January to 8 September 2005, and again from 18 December 2007 to 4 March 2010. Yulia Tymoshenko is the leader of the All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland", which is the largest opposition political party in Ukraine.

Since May 2010 a number of criminal cases have been brought against Yulia Tymoshenko. On June 24, 2011, a trial started in the “gas case,” concerning a contract with Russian gas company Gazprom to supply natural gas to Ukraine, which had been signed in 2009. Tymoshenko was charged with abuse of power and embezzlement, as the allegedly biased court found the deal anti-economic for the country and abusive. On 11 October 2011, a Ukrainian court sentenced Yulia Tymoshenko to seven years in prison after she was found guilty of all charges. Following the February 2014 Euromaidan riots, on 21 February 2014, Parliament voted for her release in a 310-54 veto-proof vote. On Saturday 22 February 2014 she was released. After her release Tymoshenko is now able to run for office, since she has no criminal record. Yulia Tymoshenko had been held since May 2012 in the Kharkiv-based Central Clinical Hospital No.5 under police surveillance, where she had been receiving treatment after being diagnosed with a spinal disc herniation. Tymoshenko has been on three hunger strikes since her imprisonment.

The “gas case” trial was viewed by many international organizations, such as the Danish Helsinki Committee, as a politically-charged persecution that violates the law. The European Union and other international organizations see the conviction as "justice being applied selectively under political motivation." The European Union has shelved the European Union Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with Ukraine over the issue.The EU has repeatedly called for release of Yulia Tymoshenko as a primary condition for signing the EU Association Agreement. The European Court on Human Rights stated in April 2013 that Tymoshenko’s arrest in the case had been politically motivated and her rights had been violated.

Yulia Tymoshenko has been a practicing economist and academic. Prior to her political career, Yulia Tymoshenko was a successful but controversial businesswoman in the gas industry, becoming by some estimates one of the richest people in the country. Before becoming Ukraine's first female Prime Minister in 2005, Tymoshenko co-led the Orange Revolution. She placed third in Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women 2005. Tymoshenko was a candidate in the Ukrainian presidential elections of 2010, but lost that election to Viktor Yanukovych. In December 2012 the united opposition nominated her and later in June 2013 confirmed her as its candidate in the 2015 Ukrainian presidential election. Tymoshenko strives for Ukraine’s integration into the European Union, strongly opposes the membership of Ukraine in the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia, and supports eradication of post-Soviet corrupt clans in Ukraine.

Yulia Tymoshenko Early Life And Career

Yulia Tymoshenko was born 27 November 1960, in Dnipropetrovsk, Soviet Ukraine. Her mother, Lyudmila Telehina, was born 11 August 1937, in Dnipropetrovsk. Yulia Tymoshenko father, Volodymyr Abramovych Hrihyan who abandoned Lyudmila Telehina and his daughter when Yulia was three years old was born December 3, 1937, in Dnipropetrovsk and was according to his Soviet passport Latvian. His mother was Maria Yosypivna Hrihyan, born in 1909. His father was Abram Kelmanovych Kapitelman after graduating from Dnipropetrovsk State University in 1940 Kapitalman was sent to work in Western Ukraine, where he worked "one academic quarter" as the director of a public Jewish school in the city Sniatyn. In the autumn of 1940 Kapitalman was mobilized into the army, he was killed while taking part in World War II on November 8, 1944, with the rank of "lieutenant communications".

Volodymyr left the family when Yulia was a year old, and Yulia was raised by her mother alone. Tymoshenko took the surname of her mother, "Telehina", before graduating from high school in 1977. In 1979, Yulia married Oleksandr Tymoshenko, son of a mid-level Soviet official. In 1980 their daughter Yevhenia was born.

Yulia Tymoshenko Education

In 1977 Yulia Tymoshenko graduated from high school with distinction. In 1978 Tymoshenko was enrolled in the Automatization and Telemechanics department of the Dnipropetrovsk Mining Institute. In 1979 she transferred to the Economic Department of the Dnipropetrovsk State University and majored in cybernetic engineering. In 1984 Tymoshenko graduated from the Dnipropetrovsk State University with first degree honors as an engineer-economist. In 1999, she defended a PhD dissertation, entitled State Regulation of the tax system, at the Kiev National Economic University.

Yulia Tymoshenko Business Career

After graduating from the Dnipropetrovsk State University in 1984, Yulia Tymoshenko worked as an engineer-economist in a "Dnipro Machine-Building Plant" in Dnipropetrovsk until 1988. In 1988, as part of the perestroika initiatives, Yulia and Oleksandr Tymoshenko borrowed 5000 Soviet rubles and opened a video rental cooperative, perhaps with the help of Oleksander's father Gennadi Tymoshenko, who presided over a regional film distribution network in the provincial council. In 1989–1991, Yulia and Oleksandr Tymoshenko founded and headed a commercial video rental company, "Terminal", in Dnipropetrovsk, which grew to be quite successful.

In 1991, Yulia Tymoshenko established (jointly with her husband Oleksandr, Gennadi Tymoshenko and Olexandr Gravets)  "The Ukrainian Petrol Corporation", a company that provided the agriculture industry of Dnipropetrovsk with fuel from 1991 to 1995. Tymoshenko worked as a General Director. In 1995, this company was reorganized into United Energy Systems of Ukraine. Tymoshenko was the president of United Energy Systems of Ukraine, a privately owned middleman company that became the main importer of Russian natural gas to Ukraine, from 1995 to January 1, 1997. During that time she was nicknamed the "gas princess". Yulia Tymoshenko was also accused of "having given Pavlo Lazarenko kickbacks in exchange for her company's stranglehold on the country's gas supplies", although Judge Martin Jenkins of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, on May 7, 2004, dismissed the allegations of money laundering and conspiracy regarding UESU, Somoli Ent. et al. (companies affiliated with Yulia Tymoshenko) in connection with Lazarenko’s activities. During this period, Tymoshenko was involved in business relations with many important figures of Ukraine.

Yulia Tymoshenko Political career

Yulia Tymoshenko entered politics in 1996, when she was elected to the Verkhovna Rada in constituency #229, Bobrynets, Kirovohrad Oblast, winning a record 92.3% of the vote. In Parliament, Tymoshenko joined the Constitutional Centre faction. In February 1997 this centrists faction was 56 lawmakers strong and, according to Ukrayinska Pravda, it supported the policies of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. In late November 1997, the General Prosecutor of Ukraine asked the Verkhovna Rada to lift Tymoshenko's parliamentary immunity, but the deputies voted against it. In late 1997, Tymoshenko called for the next Ukrainian Presidential elections to be held not in 1999, but in the fall of 1998.

Yulia Tymoshenko was re-elected in 1998, winning a constituency in the Kirovohrad Oblast, and was also number six on the party list of Hromada. Yulia Tymoshenko became an influential person in the parliament and was appointed the Chair of the Budget Committee of the Verkhovna Rada. After Hromada's party leader Pavlo Lazarenko fled to the United States in February 1999 to avoid investigations for embezzlement, various faction members left Hromada to join other parliamentary factions, among them Tymoshenko, who set up the All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" faction in March 1999 in protest against the methods of Lazarenko. "Fatherland" was officially registered as a political party in September 1999, and began to attract the voters who had voted for Yevhen Marchuk in the October 1999 presidential election. In 2000, "Fatherland" went in opposition to President Kuchma.

Yulia Tymoshenko Personal life

Yulia Tymoshenko and her husband rent a house in Kiev and own a house in Dnipropetrovsk. Yulia Tymoshenko has declared she never used and will never use or move into a state-owned summer house, in contrast with all former-Presidents of Ukraine, who are all living in state-owned dachas in Koncha-Zaspa. According to Ukrainian media Tymoshenko lives in an estate in Koncha-Zaspa, "rented from a friend for free".

Yulia Tymoshenko has publicly stated that, like most Soviet citizens, she spoke only Russian in her childhood. In January 2010 Tymoshenko stated that in Dnipropetrovsk she did not have to speak Ukrainian until she was 36.  According to Tymoshenko her braids are a family tradition. In her spare time, before she was imprisoned, Tymoshenko ran on a treadmill for exercise and listened to the music of Andrea Bocelli, Sarah Brightman, Anna Netrebko and Alessandro Safina. Ukrayinska Pravda is her favourite news source. Yulia Tymoshenko has stated she has watched the Tunisian Revolution and Egyptian Revolution of 2011 "with joy and admiration".