Compromising materials on Ukrainian vice-premier to be found in Moscow

Ukrainian news agency UNIAN reports that a “special team” of the Ukrainian procurator general’s office has arrived in Moscow aiming to found materials compromising Ukrainian vice-premier Yuliya Timoshenko. This information has allegedly been sourced from Russian procurator general’s office. Earlier, the press-service of the Ukrainian procurator general’s office distributed information of Ms. Timoshenko’s involvement in giving bribes to former Russian Defence Ministry’s official. Spokespersons at the Batkivshchina (Fatherland) Party decline to comment on this. However, they say they are “concerned by the fact that the procurator generals office, instead of investigating the Georgi Gongadze case and other related issues, is engaged in discrediting Cabinet members.” Representatives of the Batkivshchina parliamentary faction think it may be the revenge for their efforts to dismiss power ministries’ heads. Deputy procurator general Nikolai Obikhod gave “no comments.” Later, UNIAN, citing its source in the Russian procurator general’s office, confirmed that Russia’s law-enforcement body had been commissioned by Ukrainian representatives to “compomise” Ms. Timoshenko “demonstrating an interest towards the Ukrainian vice-premier which, irrespective of her guilt, serves by itself as a powerful compromising factor.” The compromising is supposed to be built on Ms. Timoshenko being accused of debts incurred by the Unified Energy Systems utility, onetime headed by her, to Russia’s Defence Ministry for gas supplied in 1997.