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Thanks for A2A!

Disclaimer: I strongly dislike Yulia Tymoshenko both as a person and as a politician

TL/DR: Innocent until proven guilty

Yulia Tymoshenko claims to have earned her capital thanks to her business acumen—she started with demonstrating pirated Western movies on video back in the Soviet times (BTW, thanks, Yulia!); afterwards, she traded in petrol and oil, and organized supply of Russia’s natural gas to Ukraine. In my opinion, however, most of her wealth comes from her networks (and a good head start—her father-in-law was one of the regional Communist party leaders in the Soviet times) and the close relationship with government officials.

Based on Tymoshenko’s declaration

of assets as a public person, investigative journalists suggested that she was now getting money from pawnbroker business via an offshore company.

While these activities are not criminal or unlawful per se, they are justly viewed with suspicion in the country. So, to me, she is as criminal as most of the post-Soviet businesspeople are. I don’t consider all of them criminals—and, at the same time, I do not believe that they can claim any moral authority.

Footnotes

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