Kyiv's Pechersky District Court questioned former Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov as a witness at former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's trial dealing with the 2009 Ukrainian-Russian gas supply agreements on Thursday.
Following Turchynov’s questioning, the court was to consider the defense team’s motions.
Turchynov said at the trial that former President Viktor Yuschenko had not been legally entitled to recall a Ukrainian delegation from the negotiations with Russia concerning the gas supply contract.
"In line with the constitution, the president did not have the right to order this," he said.
Turchynov said he had learned on January 1, 2009, that the Ukrainian delegation had left the negotiations without explanations, refusing to sign an already agreed-upon contract stipulating a gas price of $235 per 1,000 cubic meters.
"It was a shock to me. I couldn’t understand what had happened. When I managed to contact [former Naftogaz Ukrainy CEO Oleh] Dubyna, he told me that this was not his decision but the president’s decision, who had called him just before signing the contract and demanded without any explanations that the delegation leave the talks," Turchynov said.
Turchynov said he was sure that the negotiations had been thwarted because of RosUkrEnergo’s interests. "No other explanations existed for disrupting the negotiations but RosUkrEnergo’s interests," he said.
"A very effective relationship system between RosUkrEnergo and one of its owners Dmytro Firtash, on the one side, and President Yuschenko on the other had been formed," he said.
This "relationship" between Firtash and Yuschenko was started even before the latter’s presidential inauguration, he said.
When the Ukrainian delegation left the negotiations, "Russia viewed this as a demarche," Turchynov said.
After that, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that the price for gas to be sold to Ukraine would be $450 per 1,000 cubic meters, he said.
"A lower price was never announced," he said.
Moreover, Russia later claimed "an absolutely unmanageable price" of $730 per 1,000 cubic meters of technical gas, and this price was declared just on the eve of Tymoshenko’s talks with the Russian leadership, Turchynov said.
