You're reading: Prosecutors: Tymoshenko did not spend Kyoto money on pensions

Leader of the Batkivschyna Party Yulia Tymoshenko didn't spend the money received by Ukraine under the Kyoto Protocol on social payments, the Prosecutor General's Office has said.

"This is a deliberate lie. The money received under the Kyoto Protocol was not used by Prime Minister [Tymoshenko] exclusively for the payment of pensions," First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin said while reporting on a criminal case against Tymoshenko at parliament on Wednesday.

"The money from the Kyoto Protocol was spent. … The budget had enough money for paying pensions. … The government was able to pay pensions, without touching the ‘Kyoto money,’" he said.

Moreover, the first deputy prosecutor general said that, by law the money received under the Kyoto Protocol could be used only for environmental purposes.

Kuzmin said that even if Tymoshenko had used the money for paying social benefits, it would have been illegal anyway.

"But I am telling you again: it is not true. The money of the Kyoto Protocol wasn’t used for pensions, [although] Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko said this herself in several interviews," he stressed.