Former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko believes that criminal cases against former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are intended to disrupt the country's plans of eventually obtaining a membership of the European Union.
"I thought and still think that the case against Tymoshenko is a well-designed special operation that uses [Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych’s desire for revenge on the leader of the opposition with a view of thwarting Ukraine’s European integration. The whole world has already realized this, therefore with this another trial the authorities are digging their grave, unfortunately taking Ukraine along," Lutsenko told Interfax-Ukraine through his lawyers.
As reported, on Dec. 23 Kyiv’s Court of Appeals upheld the ruling of Kyiv’s Pechersky District Court sentencing Tymoshenko to seven years in prison for abuse of office in signing gas contracts with Russia in 2009. Tymoshenko was also barred from taking government posts for three years and obliged to pay more than Hr 1.5 billion to Naftogaz Ukrainy in compensation for the losses it sustained through the gas contract.
