Former Ukrainian PM Tymoshenko charged amid anti-graft investigation

Former Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko was charged with offering bribes to lawmakers following an investigation and a raid by the country's anti-corruption bodies, authorities revealed on Wednesday.

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) reportedly raided the offices of a political party on Tuesday evening.

It was later reported that the searches took place at the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party headquarters, which is led by Tymoshenko.

Tymoshenko confirmed the news of the raid on Wednesday morning and rejected all allegations against her, calling them "absurd".

NABU and SAPO issued a statement saying that they have notified “the leader of one of the factions in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of their suspicion that she offered unlawful benefits to members of the Ukrainian parliament.”

“According to the investigation, after NABU and SAPO exposed the facts of receiving illegal benefits by Ukrainian MPs for passing decisions on draft laws in parliament in December 2025, the suspect initiated negotiations with individual MPs on the introduction of a systematic mechanism for providing illegal benefits in exchange for loyal behaviour during voting," the statement said.

The anti-corruption watchdogs stated that these were not one-off agreements, but a “regular cooperation mechanism that provided for advance payments and was designed for a long period.”

“Members of the parliament were to receive instructions on how to vote, and in some cases, on how to abstain or not participate in voting," the statement added.

NABU and SAPO also released a video that includes recordings of the alleged arrangements and footage from the Tuesday evening search.

The person's face in the video and photos is blurred, but Tymoshenko can be easily identified by her signature hairstyle.

The NABU also published an alleged instruction sent by Tymoshenko to a lawmaker.

Specifically, she instructed the member of parliament to vote in favour of firing Vasyl Malyuk, head of Ukraine’s security service SBU, Defence Minister Denys Shmyhal, and Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, according to the agency.

She also said that the MP should vote against appointing Fedorov as defence minister, Shmyhal as energy minister, and Denys Maslov as justice minister, according to the alleged instruction.

The Ukrainian parliament appointed Fedorov as defence minister on Wednesday, who issued a strongly-worded message in support of Ukraine’s fight against corruption.

“Trust is our main currency in our interactions with partners, society and the military. That is why anti-corruption is the foundation of the new Ministry of Defence," he said. "Today, anyone who steals during wartime is our enemy.”

The NABU raids and announcements come two weeks after Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdogs said on 27 December that they unveiled a criminal group involving lawmakers who received cash in exchange for parliamentary votes.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Tymoshenko called the NABU and SAPO operation “the so-called urgent investigative actions” and said they “have nothing to do with law or justice."

Tymoshenko said the searches were conducted without a warrant and had been accompanied only by "loud public statements online without any evidence."

She described the search as a "grand PR stunt" and said that the investigators had "found nothing," instead seizing her "work phones, parliamentary documents and personal savings, all of which are fully declared in my official asset declaration."

"I categorically reject all these absurd accusations. It seems the elections are much closer than they seemed. And someone has decided to begin clearing out political competitors."

Tymoshenko served as prime minister of Ukraine in 2005 and again from 2007 to 2010.

Her Batkivshchyna party currently holds 25 seats in Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.