\u201cSince the start of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion, western countries \u2014 under the threat of withholding loans \u2014 have imposed unacceptable control over Ukraine\u2019s state institutions, state-owned banks, and monopolies, undermining the country\u2019s sovereignty. This is cruel and unjust toward a nation at war,\u201d she said during an interview at the offices of her party, Batkivshchyna, or Fatherland.<\/p>\n
Her comments represented arguably the sharpest criticism of the West by a leader of a Ukrainian political party since President Putin ordered tanks into Ukraine in 2022, an assault that Kyiv has resisted with the help of US and European weapons<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tymoshenko\u2019s argument that Kyiv\u2019s sovereignty is in danger is based mainly on the presence of western experts in advisory groups that select candidates for appointment to Ukraine\u2019s Constitutional Court, High Council of Justice, State Customs Service, State Bureau of Investigation and its Accounting Chamber, as well as anti-corruption agencies.<\/p>\n Viktor Yanukovych and President Putin in 2014<\/p>\n ALEXANDER NEMENOV\/AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n The westerners, who include a senior official at the UK\u2019s National Audit Office, are able to vote together to veto potential appointees and their votes carry more weight than the Ukrainian experts in the event of a tie. As a rule, there are six members in the commissions \u2014 three foreigners and three Ukrainians. Such international oversight, Tymoshenko said, may have been appropriate in countries such as Afghanistan, Liberia and Sierra Leone, but not in Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cUkraine is not a failed state, as the Kremlin tries to portray it. We are a sovereign European nation, heroically resisting full-scale aggression and defending the values of Europe with weapons in hand,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are not Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n During a fiery speech in parliament last month, Tymoshenko described President Zelensky\u2019s clampdown on the western-backed Nabu and Sapo<\/a> anti-corruption agencies as a \u201cbright day\u201d for Ukraine.<\/p>\n But while Zelensky justified the move as necessary to combat alleged Russian infiltration, Tymoshenko hailed it as a long overdue step towards curbing western control over vital state institutions that she said was rapidly turning Ukraine into a \u201cdisenfranchised colony\u201d. She and other Batkivshchyna MPs abstained during last week\u2019s vote to restore independence to the agencies following rare nationwide protests<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 Why were Ukrainians protesting against Zelensky? The unrest explained<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Protestors in Kyiv demonstrate against a law affecting anti-corruption agencies<\/p>\n DAN BASHAKOV\/GLOBAL IMAGES UKRAINE\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n Oleksandr Merezhko, an MP with Zelensky\u2019s ruling party and the head of the Ukrainian parliament\u2019s foreign affairs committee, described Tymoshenko\u2019s claims that Kyiv was losing its sovereignty as \u201cabsurd\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe decision to include foreign experts [in advisory councils] was not taken against the will of Ukraine,\u201d he said. \u201cUkraine has consented to this decision. Foreign states, for instance EU states, give us money and they are interested in guarantees which would make selection processes of judges, for instance, objective.\u201d<\/p>\n Tymoshenko responded by accusing Merezhko of trying to \u201cconceal the weakness and incompetence\u201d of Zelensky\u2019s government.<\/p>\n \u2022 Zelensky\u2019s rivals plot path to Ukraine presidency<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cDo not tell us that Ukrainians can die for peace in Europe, but are somehow unfit to govern their own country,\u201d she said. \u201cOur western friends had no right to expect that, at one of the most difficult moments in our nation\u2019s history, Ukraine should repay aid or loans with its sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n Her critics say that such comments are almost identical to those made by Putin, who has cited international vetting of Ukraine\u2019s state institutions as \u201cevidence\u201d that the country is a western puppet state that poses an existential threat to Moscow.<\/p>\n The Dejure Foundation, a Kyiv-based group of lawyers and legal experts who advocate for an independent judiciary, have accused Tymoshenko of \u201copenly siding\u201d with Moscow. \u201cThe participation of international experts \u2026 ensures genuinely independent selection processes and bolsters public trust in the judicial system,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n A woman carries her belongings from her shop after a Russian drone strike hit a market in Druzhkivka, in the Donetsk region, at the weekend<\/p>\n DIEGO HERRERA CARCEDO\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n Tymoshenko shrugged away suggestions that her rhetoric was playing into Russia\u2019s hands, saying instead that Kremlin propaganda was being fuelled by western actions. \u201cOur western friends should not give Putin grounds to say this.\u201d<\/p>\n That is not her only grievance with the West. At a Nato summit in Bucharest in 2008, during her second term as prime minister, the alliance failed to provide Ukraine with an action plan for membership, stating only that Kyiv would be able join at an undefined date in the future. The decision is now widely seen as having encouraged Russia\u2019s belief that western countries were not prepared to risk a conflict with Moscow to defend Kyiv.<\/p>\n The United States had wanted to admit both Ukraine and Georgia, another former Soviet state, to Nato\u2019s membership action plan but France and Germany objected, fearing that it would anger the Kremlin. There was also opposition inside Ukraine, where an opinion poll just before the Bucharest summit showed that one in two voters opposed Nato membership, while just one in four were in favour. The rest were undecided.<\/p>\n Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel at the summit in Bucharest in 2008<\/p>\n ERIC FEFERBERG\/AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n A year after the 2008 Nato summit, 40 per cent of Ukrainians saw the alliance as a threat, while just 17 per cent said they thought it would offer protection, according to a Gallup poll. Most had no opinion or were undecided, however.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, Tymoshenko believes that the alliance\u2019s decision not to provide Kyiv with a clear road plan towards membership was a \u201ctragic, fatal mistake\u201d that ultimately encouraged Moscow to invade Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cFor today\u2019s war \u2014 for the lives lost and broken, for the destruction of Ukrainian cities and villages, for the suffering of millions \u2014 responsibility also lies with those [western] leaders who voted against granting Ukraine a Membership Action Plan,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Nato has still not offered Ukraine a path to membership and President Trump said this year that he sympathised with Russia\u2019s claim<\/a> that the alliance\u2019s eastwards expansion was a threat to its national security. Ukraine joining Nato, he said in February, \u201cis not going to happen\u201d.<\/p>\n While Tymoshenko\u2019s Batkivshchyna party is one of Ukraine\u2019s oldest, it holds only 26 seats in parliament at present out of 450. Only 5 per cent of voters would like to see her as the country\u2019s next president, according to a recent opinion poll. Yet her name still carries weight abroad.<\/p>\n![\"Vladimir](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\/1eecd8e0-bc63-499e-ac6e-79c096abd750.jpg\")
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