Published in Kyiv Post
By: Yulia Tymoshenko

Not so a long ago, Rinat Akhmetov threatened to hire clever American experts and draft a plan of development for Ukraine for the next 20-30 years.

According to the plan, (which I read on the Internet), it was supposed to be, at the very least, a “Marshall Plan for Ukraine.”

However, whether marshals have ended somewhere there, beyond the ocean, or something even worse has happened, I don’t know. Except, that instead of a Marshall Plan, they have given us the “Professor's Plan” [reference to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych – Ed. Note] as usual.

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Published in Le Monde
By: Yulia Tymoshenko

During the past two months, as Ukraine’s political crisis has deepened, I have heard from the West: “once again, the young Ukrainian democracy is teetering.“ The European Union has looked at us as if Ukraine were a troubled and immature child. But Ukrainians have shown the world that they can control their destiny. A political compromise was found, setting the date for new parliamentary elections on September 30th. This agreement is a victory of national interest over personal and clan rivalries.

Since this event, something new has interfered with European countries’ attention towards Ukraine: Russia has threatened to find new targets in Europe if the United States finally decides to set up missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Most Western diplomatic services are severely troubled by these threats, and rightly so. Countless times, I have attempted to focus the attention of European leaders on the concern of a self-confident and increasingly aggressive Russia controlling the strategic assets of oil and gas.

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Published in Zerkalo Nedeli
By: Yulia Tymoshenko

The Mirror Weekly is for Ukrainian politics the same as Forbes is for the world’s business elite. If the policymaker’s name does not appear in this paper for a very long time, people start to think that something has gone wrong him.

At the end of the last year, I tried to provide an overview of the political year in Mirror Weekly. This year Ukrainian politics is so unpredictable that I would like to give an overview of the results of the outgoing period earlier than at the end of the year because current events might be forgotten and loose their importance by winter.

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Published in Foreign Affairs
By: Yulia Tymoshenko

Summary: Russia's imperial ambitions did not end with the fall of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin has returned to expansionism, trying to recapture great-power status at the expense of its neighbors, warns one of Ukraine's most prominent politicians. The United States and Europe must counter with a strong response -- one that keeps Russia in check without sparking a new Cold War.

Yuliya Tymoshenko is the leader of Ukraine's parliamentary opposition. From January to September 2005, she was Prime Minister of Ukraine.

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Published in Taipei Times
By: Yulia Tymoshenko

Suddenly, Ukraine faces another stark choice: dismiss the government and parliament and hold new elections, or see the country's independence surrendered bit by bit. There is renewed talk, too, of violent civil unrest. None of this should be surprising, given how our corrupt rulers systematically incite regional and ethnic hatred.

Some say that President Viktor Yushchenko's decision this week to dismiss Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich's government was unwarranted. They are wrong: Yushchenko's actions were necessary because the Yanukovich government, in clear violation of the law, was preparing to mount a constitutional coup that would have stripped the president of his remaining supervisory powers over the army and police. Either the president acted now, or Ukraine would return to the absolute rule of criminal clans that existed before our Orange Revolution in 2004.

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Published in Daily Times (Pakistan)
By: Yulia Tymoshenko

Ukraine’s neighbours should now help us by offering support and hope. Europe must send a clear signal that Ukraine, unlike Czechoslovakia to Neville Chamberlain in 1938, is not some faraway place of which it knows little, but rather an integral part of the European project Suddenly, Ukraine faces another stark choice: dismiss the government and parliament and hold new elections, or see the country’s independence surrendered bit by bit. There is renewed talk, too, of violent civil unrest. None of this should be surprising, given how our corrupt rulers systematically incite regional and ethnic hatred.

Some say that President Viktor Yushchenko’s decision this week to dismiss Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich’s government was unwarranted. They are wrong: Yushchenko’s actions were necessary because the Yanukovich government, in clear violation of the law, was preparing to mount a constitutional coup that would have stripped the president of his remaining supervisory powers over the army and police. Either the president acted now, or Ukraine would return to the absolute rule of criminal clans that existed before our Orange Revolution in 2004.

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Published in HAARETZ
By: Yulia Tymoshenko

Iran`s influence in the Middle East is being strengthened not only because of the opportunities created by the frustration of U.S. power in Iraq, but also because of the diplomatic protection it has been receiving from China and, most importantly, from Russia.

Russia, by wielding the threat of its UN Security Council veto, spent much of the past two years whittling away at the proposed list of sanctions that might be slapped on Iran for its refusal to honor its commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency over its nuclear program. As a result, the sanctions now imposed by the Security Council are so tepid that they are unlikely to be effective.

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