KIEV, September 1 (Itar-Tass) —— Ukraine’s former prime minister, Yulia Timoshenko, is on trial for falsifying government directives at talks on gas contracts with Russia in January 2009, Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov said at an open lecture for students at the Taras Shevchenko National University in Kiev on Thursday.
Azarov said the chief executive officer of Naftogaz Ukrainy, Oleg Dubina, while on a visit in Moscow, refused to sign the agreement on negotiated terms, because he had no written directives from the government. Then Timoshenko, according to Azarov, “knowing very well that the government has not approved those directives and will never approve them,” “created a fake called “directives of the government of Ukraine”, “put her signature and the seal of the Cabinet of Ministers to the document and handed it over to Dubina for signature.”
He also said that the contracts Yulia Tymoshenko signed were “absolutely disadvantageous for Ukraine and unfair and should be reconsidered.”
On Wednesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev spoke in support of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement regarding the trial of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko.
“We do understand how Timoshenko is being tried and for what. She is on trial for an agreement with Russia, and not for past sins,” he said.