Posted on 01/29/2008 1:24:10 PM PST by Ivan the Terrible
Yulia Tymoshenko, the Ukrainian prime minister who is keen to clean up the murky natural gas trade between her country, Russia and central Asia, on Monday said Moscow’s arrest of a reputed crime boss was a sign that the days were numbered for ”corrupt” intermediaries.
Ms Tymoshenko was referring to the arrest of the 61-year old mobster Semyon Mogilevich, who has alleged links to Swiss-registered RosUkrEnergo, a company half owned by Gazprom and 50 per cent controlled by two Ukrainian businessmen.
”We don’t need any shadowy intermediaries,” Ms Tymoshenko told reporters in Brussels while on her first foreign visit after regaining the premier post last year.
Mr Mogilevich was detained by Russian officials last week on tax evasion charges that did not appear to directly involve his alleged role in the gas business. But analysts in Kiev and Moscow have claimed that his arrest signals a shift in Moscow’s support for gas trading intermediaries.
Since regaining the premiership last month, Ms Tymoshenko has resumed a campaign against RosUkrEnergo, which won its monopoly in January 2006 after a price dispute that led Russia to shut off gas to Ukraine in mid-winter. The dispute triggered supply shortages in Europe, which receives most of its Russian gas via Ukraine’s pipeline system.
Ms Tymoshenko told the BBC’s Panorama programme in 2006 that she had ”no doubts whatsoever” that Mogilevich was behind RosUkrEnergo, according to a transcript on the BBC website.
Ms Tymoshenko on Monday refrained from repeating those earlier claims, but insisted that such intermediaries posed an energy security risk to: Ukraine, a key transit country; Europe, a consumer; and Russia, a producer.
A lawyer for Mogilevich has denied his client’s involvement in RosUkrEnergo. Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian billionaire who owns 45 per cent of RosUkrEnergo, has also denied having business relations with Mr Mogilevich.
Ms Tymoshenko’s Brussels visit comes at a critical time in relations between Ukraine, the European Union and Russia.
Kiev’s western integration drive, originally set in motion after the pro-democracy Orange Revolution of 2004, has received a fresh start after pro-western forces backing Ms Tymoshenko and Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s president, reunited to win a snap parliamentary poll last autumn.
Ms Tymoshenko stressed in Brussels that her country was dedicated to a free trade pact with the European Union. Formal negotiations are to kick off after Kiev joins the World Trade Organisation, a long-delayed feat that is expected to happen in February.
”Ukraine is getting closer and closer to the European Union,” José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, said after with his meeting with Ms Tymoshenko on Monday.
wow! talk about coal calling the kettle black. Yulia is as corrupt as they come. she could give the clintoons a great run for the money.
Moscow is going to get angry if Ukraine moves further to the west. Since Putin has been president, he’s concentrated on trying to maintain Russian influence over the FSRs.
Ukraine and others are doing OK. i’m waiting for some ass from State to stab them in the back.
“Yulia is as corrupt as they come”
link pls.
sorry, no links on hand. just experience traveling through the country the past few years. most women that i’ve met are looking forward to her promise to reduce the price of sugar.
there are many net sources that document her previous business activities. i think that Wiki is a start.
it’s late, if you need more info, i might be able to provide more tomorrow.
“According to Tymoshenko, the charges were fabricated by Kuchma’s regime, under the influence of oligarchs threatened by her efforts to root out corruption and institute market-based reforms. In spite of being cleared of the charges, Moscow maintained an arrest warrant for Tymoshenko...
Once the charges were dropped, she became one of the leaders of street-level campaigns...
The following year Tymoshenko was involved in a mysterious car accident that she survived with minor injuries—an episode some believe may have been a government assassination attempt”
................
Here is your Wiki quote - I think the rumor you’re passing on is Kremlin inspired and without basis.
Rather, she looks like a genuine hero that is at the forefront of F’ing the Kremlin.
i’m waiting for some ass from State to stab them in the back.
something like this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1961821/posts
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