You're reading: Tymoshenko: Lawmakers being offered $5 million to join ruling coalition

Ex-Ukrainian premier and current opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko has said that lawmakers are being offered a bribe of $5 million each in order to join the ruling pro-governmental coalition.

"Isolated recreants have currently left our ranks. They, by using the authority of our team, converted it into their dubious achievements, either financial or professional," she said in an interview with the Korrespondent magazine, which was published on Friday.

Tymoshenko said if BYuT members had not been enticed into the coalition, this circumstance would have had to be invented.

"This is natural selection. Can you imagine that our MPs, many of whom have not seen $50,000 in their life, are currently being offered $5 million? Young professionals are being offered high-ranking posts, but 150 people remain in our team, and they are ready to resist," she said.

"And even if historical parallels are drawn, then Jesus was sold for 30 pieces of silver, figuratively speaking, by a twelfth of the faction, but we, mere mortal and sinful people, have a significantly higher figure," Tymoshenko said.