MY FIGHT TO SAVE MY MOTHER Eugenia Tymoshenko had a blessed early life as her mother, Yulia, rose to become prime minister of Ukraine. Then came the arrest. She tells Tim Bouquet about the bitter fight to get “Lady Yu” out of jail Photograph Sergey Dolzhenko ugenia Tymoshenko steps out of a cab in sunny Knightsbridge wearing black high heels, a smart tan skirt and black jacket. She E could be something senior at Goldman Sachs, but her pressing business is about life, death and justice. The 32-year-old is on a campaign to free her mother from a seven-year jail sentence in a Ukrainian prison – and, she says, from physical and mental torture that threatens to kill her. Eugenia’s mother is Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister of Ukraine, sent to prison after a sequence of events that combines the plot of a revenge thriller with the darkest politics of the Soviet Union era. In October last year, Tymoshenko was found guilty of crimi- nally “abusing her office” in what the United States and European Union have both called a politically motivated show trial. Even Rus- sian president Vladimir Putin criticised the sentence. Since the start of her prison term, her daughter claims, Yulia has been beaten and denied access to a doctor or drugs. She has also been accused – without evidence – Taking of the murder of a fellow MP. Tymoshenko’s a stand: supporters have protested and battled police Eugenia on the streets of Kiev, and Tymoshenko herself Tymoshenko campaigning has gone on hunger strike. Now it seems her for the only hope of freedom is her daughter. release of her Eugenia makes an unlikely saviour. Until mother, Yulia her mother’s sentence, her career was running 20 MAGAZINE | 23.09.12 | THE OBSERVER EUGENIA TYMOSHENKO an Italian restaurant in Kiev. “I never had any through 15 premiers since that first flush of banks. The rise of UESU was meteoric – some ambition for politics,” she tells me. These days independence. It is a country where politi- said suspicious. By the end of 1996, under Eugenia strides confidently into TV studios for cal alliances are notoriously short-lived the patronage of then-prime minister Pavlo interviews. She talks with poise and passion to and morph very quickly into acrimony and Lazarenko, the company controlled 25% of presidents and prime ministers. She addresses revenge. However, Viktor Yanukovych the Ukrainian economy. According to the meetings of MEPs and briefs lawyers. And she and Yulia Tymoshenko share a history and Ukrainian newspaper Izvestia, UESU was litigates. “Ukraine courts don’t work,” Eugenia a loathing that runs deep even by Ukrainian a kind of a “state within a state”. says. “We have to go overseas.” standards. Did Eugenia or her father not try One of the wealthiest businesspeople in the When we meet she is in London talking to persuade her to stay away from a political country, Tymoshenko entered politics in the to lawyers as she takes action in the British tide that was turning strongly against her? 1990s. Blessed with incredible willpower and courts against Ukraine’s first deputy prosecu- “Ten years ago maybe we could have,” energy – and a hard edge behind her trade- tor. In March, Renat Kuzmin told BBC Ukraine Eugenia says, her dark eyes momentarily star- mark smile – “Lady Yu” could work a crowd that he had “reliable information” that money ing into the middle distance. “But now she sees like nobody else. When a rival in parliament from her mother’s accounts had been trans- her fight as a fight for Ukraine.” claimed that if she sold her pearls they would ferred to pay hitmen who had gunned down raise enough cash to feed an average Ukrainian MP and businessman Yevgen Shcherban, BOR N IN 1960, Yulia Tymoshenko was an family for five years, she ripped off her neck- as well as his wife and his economist and engineer lace and threw it at him. “There’s not a single assistant, at an airport who, with her husband pearl in this necklace,” she shouted. in 1996. “She has never Oleksandr, built a for- Her fall from power was just as dramatic. been questioned, and this The US and EU tune with their now- Five years on from the Orange Revolution, allegation has no basis in called it a politically defunct corporation president Yuschenko’s popularity had van- fact,” Eugenia says, toy- United Energy Systems ished. The 2010 presidency battle was instead ing with her pasta. One motivated show trial. Ukraine (UESU), a gas- fought between the old regime’s Yanukovych senses that this lapsed Even Putin criticised trading concern which and Tymoshenko, with Yanukovych narrowly restaurateur now rarely also included venture prevailing. Tymoshenko challenged the result finishes a meal. the sentence capital firms and two in court and continued to protest even after Eugenia comes across as a mixture of relentless focus – displaying her mastery of the legal and political minefield that confronts her mother – and the restless stress of somebody who wishes that she could wake up to find that this was all a bad dream. Her mother first gained international prominence in 2004 as one of the leaders of the Orange Revolution that freed her coun- try from the Soviet empire. Alongside Viktor Yushchenko, who survived a near-fatal dioxin poisoning attack that disfigured his face, Tymoshenko – famous for her golden blonde braid, worn like a crown around her head, and her wardrobe of expensive peasant chic – was a figurehead for hundreds of thousands of rev- olutionaries who braved sub-zero tempera- tures in Kiev to protest against a fraud-tainted presidential election “won” by Viktor Yanuko- vych. The Supreme Court ordered a rerun and Yushchenko was elected to the presidency. “Those days were incredibly exciting,” says Eugenia. “It seemed like the end of all the political troubles for Ukraine. We could move towards becoming a member of a free and democratic Western Europe.” Yushchenko appointed Eugenia’s mother as prime minister, but their dalliance with democracy and each other did not last long. Eight months later they fell out over bitter accusations of corruption. Yushchenko sacked Tymoshenko during a live TV address to the nation in September 2005 and the following year brought in Viktor Yanu- kovych, of all people, as his new prime minister. Family ties: with her “It was then that I began daughter Eugenia to fear for my mother,” and husband Eugenia says. Oleksandr at the SERGEYDOLZHENKO/EPA Ukraine has been verdict hearing THE OBSERVER | 23.09.12 | MAGAZINE 23 EUGENIA TYMOSHENKO the election had been deemed free and fair. her marriage breakdown. When pressed she the web. International opinion began to rally. Yanukovych demanded her resignation as says: “This interview is about my mother.” This February Eugenia met Hillary Clinton prime minister; her government resigned after In December Eugenia was invited to in Washington DC. “She came over as soon as a parliamentary vote of no confidence. address the annual congress of the European she saw me and said: ‘We really support your Almost immediately the justice department People’s Party, the largest centre-right group- mother and we are very worried about her.’ moved against her, reopening an old case of tax ing in the European Parliament, to which her Mrs Clinton is a very warm person. I asked evasion and amassing evidence to put her on mother’s party is aligned. She took to the stage if she could put pressure to get my mother trial for Shcherban’s murder. The case which nervously clutching her speech and faced treated medically. She spoke to Yanukovych made it to the courts first concerned a major 1,000 delegates from 39 countries, including twice and said he had admitted that it was contract signed with Russia in 2009 to import Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel. “It was wrong to deny her medical help.” Two months gas. Tymoshenko was accused of exceeding terrifying!” she remembers. later, prison officers came to Tymoshenko’s her powers by forcing the state company, Naf- Eugenia was concerned about her mother’s cell at 11pm, turned out the lights, wrapped her togaz, to agree to a deal that overpriced the gas, health: Yulia had a herniated disc in her back. in a blanket and took her to hospital in Kharkiv. and of costing the country £120 million. “She is denied painkillers and can no longer Once she was there, photographs showed In July Eugenia was in court to see her walk,” Eugenia told the delegates. “Even severe bruising on her arms and stomach. She mother in the dock and Yushchenko giv- the priest cannot see her. She is suffering alleged she had been beaten en route. ing evidence against tortures. I’m scared that “She was not allegedly beaten,” Eugenia her. Tymoshenko was this torture will continue says fiercely. “She was hit so hard she could found guilty in October until it kills her.” A week not breathe!” Hillary Clinton protested and and ordered to repay ‘My mother was not later a video appeared Tymoshenko herself went on hunger strike the £120m in damages. “allegedly” beaten,’ on Ukrainian TV of for 20 days, losing 10kg. Eugenia was horrified. “Nobody can humiliate Tymoshenko bedridden “I tried to persuade her not to. She was already my honest name,” she says Eugenia. ‘She in prison, a shadow of so weak. But she said: ‘Stay strong!’” insisted as she began her was hit so hard she herself and protesting Eugenia says the endless travelling, lobby- sentence in Women’s at being filmed against ing and media interviews are physically and Prison No 54 in Kharkiv, could not breathe’ her will.