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“More and more of our interlocutors are saying that Kyrylo Tymoshenko may soon lose the post of deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine,” the channel said.Ukrainska Pravda’s channel said several regional governors with links to Tymoshenko may also be dismissed. Meanwhile, Ukrainian media outlet Babel, citing sources in the parliament, reported on Telegram that Tymoshenko may be fired at the insistence of Ukraine’s U.S. partners.Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko is reportedly another candidate for dismissal.

KYIV - The choice is stark. Stay the slow and not-quite-steady course with a deeply unpopular but seasoned leader who knows the ropes and has taken Ukraine westward despite foot-dragging on reforms and a failure to tackle entrenched corruption. Go with another veteran, a political survivor with a dodgy past twice imprisoned by opponents who has lost two presidential elections but is banking on public disappointment and populist promises to carry her to victory. Or take a chance on a comedian with no experience in politics and governing but who has managed to tap into an antiestablishment mood similar to...

Ukraine’s future is again bound up in the political ambitions of Yulia Tymoshenko. The fate of the two-time prime minister and her country are once more tightly woven together — like the blonde halo braid that made her an international icon. Only this time, Ukraine is at war, and that means Tymoshenko’s third run for president could have implications far beyond her country’s borders, potentially rewriting relations between Russia and the West and unbalancing the geopolitical order.

Craig supervised Alex van der Zwaan, who has pleaded guilty to lying about communications regarding his work for Ukrainian politicians. Former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig has left his law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the firm told NBC News. His departure comes after he and his law firm became caught up in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Alex van der Zwaan, who had been a lawyer in Skadden's London office, pleaded guilty to lying to prosecutors and the FBI about communications involving work the firm had been...

As part of its exclusive series on Libya during the rule of late leader Moammar al-Gaddafi, Asharq Al-Awsat examines the regime’s ties with local and foreign powers, including its attempts to finance western presidential campaigns, particularly in France, the United States and Ukraine. Witnesses from the former regime said that Tripoli had spent some 50 million euros in 2007 to fund the campaign of French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy. Lebanese businessman Ziad Takeieddine, who was present at Sarkozy’s meetings with Gaddafi revealed that the “figures were much higher than that.” Tripoli also pumped 5 million dollars in the presidential campaign...

Updated | Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer who once helped prepare a report for the Ukrainian government, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to lying to federal agents as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Documents charging van der Zwaan are dated February 16 and were filed publicly Tuesday morning. His sentencing is scheduled for April 3. Van der Zwaan, 33, is a Dutch lawyer who helped prepare a report for the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice on ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in 2012, according to court documents. He worked at the time...

Special counsel Robert Mueller has filed a charge against a lawyer for lying to investigators about his interaction with former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates in September 2016. Alex Van Der Zwaan is expected to plead guilty Tuesday afternoon. The filing is further evidence of Mueller's investigation of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Gates and their work for Russian-allied clients. He is also accused of lying about the failure to turn over an email communication to the special counsel's office. He was speaking with investigators about his work with Skadden Arps in 2012 when the firm did work...

The lobbying firms the Podesta Group and Mercury Public Affairs are the unnamed companies in the grand jury indictment of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, according to three sources with knowledge of the investigation. The indictment, unsealed Monday, refers to "Company A" and "Company B" as the firms Manafort and Gates solicited in 2012 to lobby on behalf of the Ukranian government. Company A is Mercury Public Affairs and Company B is the Podesta Group, the sources said. The revelation of the companies’ identities points to more details about the players involved in the...

A Ukrainian political leader said she received assurances from President Donald Trump that he would look out for Ukraine in its ongoing dispute with Russia, according to people briefed in the aftermath of a quick, informal conversation between the two political figures. Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko had a momentary meeting with Trump just before he spoke to the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton on Thursday. Tymoshenko and a group of supporters who traveled with her from Kiev this week quickly relayed word of the exchange, telling allies in Washington that Trump had said he would not abandon...

With little fanfare, another taboo in U.S.-Iran relations has shattered. Jim Slattery, a former six-term Democratic Congressman from Kansas, late last year became the first former or current American legislator to visit the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Tehran to attend a conference on countering violent extremism, Slattery encountered a largely friendly reception from both officials and ordinary Iranians and came back equipped to present a more realistic and upbeat depiction of Iranians than is usually found on Capitol Hill. Speaking Monday at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Slattery conceded that there are elements in Iran that still oppose any...

<p>While the NSA is busy justifying its spying of every American its existence thanks to famous Moscow resident Edward Snowden, its Russian counterparts have been busy intercepting even more phone Ukrainian conversations.</p> <p>After a month ago a leaked phone call between US assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland and the US envoy to the Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt confirmed that it was the US that was pulling the strings in what was about to be a violent coup overthrowing Ukraine's president Yanukovich, "someone" has just leaked another phone conversation, this time between parliamentarian Nestor Shufrych and former PM and ideological leader of the Ukraine "revolution" Yulia Tymoshenko and most probable future president of West Ukraine, in which Tymoshenko is makes the following threats, "It’s going too far! Bugger! We must grab arms and go whack those damn katsaps [a Ukrainian word used to refer to the Russians in a negative tone] together with their leader", "I’ll use all my connections, I’ll raise the whole world – as soon as I’m able to – in order to make sure.. Bugger!.. not even scorched earth won’t remain where Russia stands" although all her empty threats collapse in the last sentence of the phone conversation in which she says, regarding the Crimea annexation, that "we are going to take it to the Hague International Criminal Court." Good luck with that.</p>

Parliament arranged the release of Yanukovych's arch-rival, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was on her way to Kiev to join the protesters. Asked by crowds gathered at the hospital where she was released about her further plans, Tymoshenko said, "I will run for president," news agencies reported. She said she will "make it so that no drop of blood that was spilled will be forgotten." Tymoshenko, the blond-braided icon of Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution, was heading from prison in the eastern city of Kharkiv straight to the protest camp, her party said.

Parliament voted to free ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from prison by decriminalizing the article in the criminal procedural code under which she was convicted. A constitutional majority of 310 lawmakers from a cross-section of different parties, including the Communists, voted for the measure. This makes the legislation veto-proof, preventing President Viktor Yanukovych from blocking the move. Yanukovych is widely blamed for ordering the imprisonment of his political rival. The bill that parliament passed included other articles of the criminal procedural code that were decriminalized. Batkivshchyna Party lawmaker Oleksandr Turchynov, a close ally of Tymoshenko and her former deputy prime minister,...

EU ministers held an animated discussion in Brussels yesterday (14 May), evaluating the risks of “losing Ukraine to Russia” if too much pressure is put on the country over the treatment of imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Meeting over lunch to discuss Ukraine, the Union’s foreign ministers failed to adopt common positions, but agreed that more should be done to work with civil society in Ukraine to defuse a loss of confidence in the country’s European perspective. Diplomatic sources said ministers spoke openly about the risk that a tough line on Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich would push the country...

A summit of the presidents of Central European countries due in Yalta, Ukraine, on 11-12 May, will be attended by some EU leaders and boycotted by others, EurActiv has learned. Ironically, Yalta is a symbol of the division of Europe during the Cold War, following the February 1945 meeting there between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. At least four EU countries will boycott the Black Sea resort meeting. German media reported on 26 April that the country's new President Joachim Gauck canceled a trip to Ukraine this month amid worries about the health of imprisoned opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko. Then Czech...

Naked protest raises temperature outside Tymoshenko court Published: 11 October, 2011, 15:46 Naked activists from Ukraine’s feminist movement have occupied the roof of a shopping mall in Kiev despite freezing temperatures. They are calling on their compatriots to “switch on their brains” and rethink their support for Ukrainian politicians. FEMENists climbed onto a ledge of the capital’s major shopping center which is close to the court where the ex-premier’s case was being heard. Police appeared to be having difficulty reaching them. The topless women, dressed in traditional colored headbands, were chanting “Tymoshenko and Yanukovich are one,” and “Switch on your...

Ukraine Court Sentences Tymoshenko To Seven Years In Jail A police officer tries to calm Yulia Tymoshenko as she reacts to the verdict. Last updated (GMT/UTC): 11.10.2011 14:08 By RFE/RL KYIV -- Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been jailed for seven years and penalized tens of millions of dollars over abuse-of-office charges in a verdict the European Union says could have "profound implications" for relations. The accusations stem from a 2009 natural-gas deal Tymoshenko signed with Russia. Judge Rodion Kireyev said Tymoshenko's actions had caused the state damages amounting to 1.5 billion hryvna (some $190 million) and he...

A Ukraine court has found former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko guilty of abuse of authority for signing gas contracts with Russia and sentenced her Tuesday to seven years in prison. Authorities deployed hundreds of police officers around the court to keep order, state media reported. Dozens of angry Tymoshenko supporters took to the streets of Kiev in August when she was taken into custody. "Dear friends, I just want to say that I disagree with this verdict and I am saying that the year 1937 is back again," Tymoshenko said in the courtroom on Tuesday, making a reference to Josef...

KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, apparently narrowly beaten in last week's presidential vote, ended six days of silence on a defiant note Saturday, saying the vote had been rigged and she would challenge the result in court. Preliminary results from the Feb. 7 ballot gave her rival, opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, a lead of just 3.5 percentage points. International observers called the elections free and fair, but no official winner has been declared, and Tymoshenko has refused to concede defeat. She said Saturday she had evidence of fraud and would fight the result, for which the final...

Ukraine's prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, last night appeared to have forced a runoff in the race to become the country's new president, closing the gap on her chief rival, Viktor Yanukovich, enough to ensure that the pair will have to face each other again in a deciding vote next month. Exit polls showed Yanukovich winning the most votes in yesterday's presidential election, but analysts expect Tymoshenko to pick up a higher proportion of second round votes from defeated candidates. They say Yanukovich may struggle to extend his appeal beyond his support base in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine. Analysts said Tymoshenko was...