New Woes for Ukraine Opposition

MOSCOW â€”  Russian prosecutors issued bribery and smuggling charges Wednesday against a high-profile Ukrainian opposition figure who already faces corruption charges at home.

The accusations against Yulia Tymoshenko came 10 days after Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia, visited Ukraine and met with President Leonid D. Kuchma, signaling closer ties between the two nations.

The Russian charges are a boost for the Ukrainian president, who has been battling political scandal over claims he was involved in the killing of journalist Georgi Gongadze last summer.

Tymoshenko is a thorn in Kuchma’s side, one of the leading opposition figures involved in a campaign to oust him over the allegations. The Russian charges against her add weight to the original Ukrainian case, which Tymoshenko’s supporters claim is politically motivated.

The Gongadze scandal has damaged Kuchma’s standing at home and in the West. Putin has been firmly supportive, however, edging Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence.

Ukraine still depends on Russia for most of its energy needs, and Kuchma has forged closer ties with Moscow in recent months--even while assuring Western officials of his nation’s independence.

Tymoshenko was arrested in February in Ukraine on the corruption charges and released in late March. She is forbidden to leave Ukraine and faces regular interrogations by prosecution officials.

Tymoshenko, the onetime head of United Energy Systems, a large private firm, was named deputy prime minister in charge of Ukraine’s energy sector in late 1999. She was ousted by Kuchma in January.

The Ukrainian prosecutor accuses her of stealing and exporting gas and funneling millions in bribes to former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who is in a U.S. jail awaiting trial on charges of money laundering. Tymoshenko has denied the charges she faces.

The new Russian charges from the military and civilian prosecutor-generals’ offices in Moscow were handed over to the Ukrainian prosecutor-general to handle.

One charge centers on the accusation that she bribed Russian officials; the other alleges that she and her husband tried to smuggle $100,000 out of Russia in 1995. According to prosecutors, the couple was caught at an airport with money concealed in bags of food.

It is unclear why the Russian prosecutors took so long to bring the charges.

In Russia, the prosecutor-general’s office frequently has been accused of filing cases for political ends, vigorously pursuing those who anger the Kremlin.

Tymoshenko’s political party in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, issued a statement repudiating the new charges.

“This is a cheap provocation, fabricated under the influence of President Kuchma with the aim of compromising the opposition movement, which is every day growing in influence and gaining millions of supporters among Ukrainian citizens,� the statement said.

Yulia Mostova, a political analyst in Kiev and editor of Zerkalo Nedeli newspaper, said that Tymoshenko was “certainly no angel� but that there had been no evidence produced to substantiate the charges against her.

“Now a Russian warrant has been issued, but it was issued after Leonid Kuchma and Vladimir Putin had two meetings with each other,� she said. “The attention to Tymoshenko’s case proves that Vladimir Putin wants to give trifling services to Leonid Kuchma, but in exchange [the Russian president] is demanding more serious things.�

Ukraine is heavily in debt to Russia for energy purchases, and Moscow is eager to get control of key sectors of its industry in payment.