KYIV -- A Kyiv court has ordered former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to pay $760,000 bail to avoid detention on charges of offering bribes to lawmakers.
The January 16 ruling followed an announcement by Ukraine's anti-corruption authorities two days previously that Tymoshenko was suspected of organizing "a systemic mechanism for providing improper benefits in exchange for loyal behavior during voting."
If found guilty, she could face five to 10 years in prison.
Tymoshenko, the charismatic leader of the opposition Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party and three-time presidential candidate, has denied any wrongdoing and vowed to prove the evidence against her was falsified.
In a social media post on January 15, she said her bank accounts had been blocked, making her unable to post bail. But Tymoshenko's lawyers are preparing an appeal against the bail order and she does not have to pay while the appeal is considered. She was not sent to a detention center or ordered to wear an electronic bracelet.
However, some restrictions are already in place. She is not allowed to leave the Kyiv region or communicate with a large number of legislators, for instance. She also has to inform authorities about any change of her job or place of residence.
On the morning of January 14, after a search at the Batkivshchyna offices in Kyiv, Tymoshenko said the actions against her were the result of a "political order." Her party is the third largest in parliament.
In court on January 16, the judge issued Tymoshenko a warning after she repeatedly interrupted prosecutors who said there was a risk she could attempt "destruction of material evidence and influence on witnesses" if allowed to remain at liberty.
Tymoshenko was a key figure in Ukraine's 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution and a controversial figure in the country's lucrative gas industry. Prime minister for five months in 2005 and then from 2007-2010, she was jailed under abuse of power charges during the presidency of pro-Moscow leader Viktor Yanukovych.
Many international organizations said the case against Tymoshenko was politically motivated, and she was released following mass protests that toppled Yanukovych in 2014.
Having been defeated in presidential elections in 2010 by Yanukovych, she ran again in 2016 but came a distant second with just 13 percent of the vote -- losing to Petro Poroshenko. In the next election, in 2019, when Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected president, Tymoshenko came third.
