52. Complete these sentences with information from the text.

1. Raisa Gorbacheva was the sponsor of …..

2. Mrs. Gorbachev was a presence in her husband’s life in a way that ……

3. She met her future husband at ……………….

4. Mrs. Gorbachev had many supporters as she found her own way, but ….

5. Raisa Gorbachev was loved abroad for bringing a ……

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53. With her braided blonde hair, fiery speeches and designer outfits, Yulia Tymoshenko was nicknamed the “princess” by supporters of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution street protests. What else do you know about her?

Yulia Tymoshenko

“I do not seek power. I simply offer the policy that is able to revive my country”.

Yulia Tymoshenko

Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko (born 27 November 1960), Ukrainian politician, Ukraine’s first female prime minister. She is a leader of the All-Ukrainian Union Fatherland party and the Yulia Tymoshenko Electoral Bloc. Prior to that she was a successful businesswoman in the gas industry and became one of the wealthiest people in Ukraine.

Before becoming the prime minister, she was considered the most significant ally of opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko (she had been his deputy when he was prime minister), and had a very high profile during the 2004 presidential election. She was also one of the key leaders of the Orange Revolution inspired by those elections, which eventually brought Yushchenko to power. In this period, some Western media publications dubbed her “Joan of Arc of the Orange Revolution”. On 28 July 2005, Forbes magazine named her third most powerful woman in the world, behind only Condoleezza Rice and Wu Yi.

Tymoshenko was born in Dnipropetrovsk. Her origins have been the basis of some debate. Tymoshenko says she is half-Latvian on her father’s side and half-Ukrainian, on her mother’s side.

Tymoshenko married Oleksandr Tymoshenko, a son of a mid-level Soviet communist party bureaucrat, in 1979, and began rising through a number of positions under the Komsomol – Soviet official Communist youth organization. She graduated from Dnipropetrovs’k State University with a degree in economics in 1984, and went on to gain a candidate degree (the equivalent of a Ph.D.) in economics. She has since authored about 50 papers. In 1989, as part of the perestroika initiatives, she founded and headed a Komsomol’s video rental chain (which grew to be quite successful), and later privatized it.

Tymoshenko experienced a rise in power under the Soviet system, but it was after the demise of the Soviet Union that she rose to particular prominence, directing several energy-related companies and acquiring a significant fortune between 1990 and 1998. During privatisation in Ukraine, which mirrored that in Russia in terms of corruption and mismanagement, she became one of the wealthiest oligarchs in Ukraine, exporting metals. From 1995 to 1997, Tymoshenko was the president of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine, a privately owned middleman company which became the main importer of Russian natural gas in 1996. During that time she was nicknamed “gas princess” in the light of accusations she has been reselling enormous quantities of stolen Russian gas and avoiding taxation of those deals.

Tymoshenko made a move into politics in 1996, and was elected to the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) from the Kirovohrad oblast, winning a record 92.3% of the vote in her constituency. She was re-elected in 1998 and 2002. In 1998, she became the Chair of the Budget Committee of Verkhovna Rada.

From 1999 to 2001, Tymoshenko was the Deputy Prime Minister for fuel and energy sector in the cabinet of Viktor Yushchenko. She was fired by President Leonid Kuchma in January 2001 after developing a conflict with the oligarchs in the industry.

As energy Deputy Prime Minister, she virtually ended many corrupt arrangements in the energy sector. Under her stewardship, Ukraine’s revenue collections from the electricity industry grew by several thousand per cent. She scrapped the practice of barter in the electricity market, requiring industrial customers to pay for their electricity in cash. She also terminated exemptions for many organizations which excluded them from having their power disconnected. Her reforms meant that the government had sufficient funds to pay civil servants and increase salaries.

However, several months into her government, a failure to deliver on the promise of reform after the Orange Revolution began to damage Ms Tymoshenko’s administration. On 8 September 2005, after the resignation of several senior officials including the Head of the Security and Defence Council Petro Poroshenko and Deputy Prime Minister Mykola Tomenko, Yulia Tymoshenko’s government was dismissed by President Victor Yuschenko. She was succeeded by Yuriy Yehanurov, governor of Dnipropetrovsk province.

On 24 January 2005 she was appointed as acting Prime Minister of Ukraine under Yushchenko’s presidency. On 4 February 2005, at 2:54 pm (Kyiv time), Yulia Tymoshenko was ratified by the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) by an overwhelming majority of 373 votes (226 were required for approval).

She remained Prime Minister until 8 September 2005, when her government was dismissed by President Yushchenko. Later, he criticized her work as head of government, suggesting it had led to an economic slowdown and political conflicts within the ruling coalition.

After her dismissal Tymoshenko started to tour the country in a bid to win the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election as the leader of her Bloc. She soon made clear that she wanted the post of Prime Minister back.

The Bloc came second on the election, earning an estimated 130 seats and causing wide expectations that it may unite in coalition again with Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party and the Socialist Party of Ukraine in order to keep the Party of Regions from gaining power. Tymoshenko again stated her desire to become Prime Minister in such a coalition since her party would be the biggest party in it. However, the negotiations between former revolutionary allies undergo with many difficulties and mutual public allegations.

After talks on May 5, Tymoshenko announced that a coalition between the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Our Ukraine and Socialist parties should be finalized on May 10-11 and soon became the new premier minister.

In her new position, Yulia made bold moves toward re-privatizing industrial assets, leading to criticism, discontent, and her eventual removal from office by Yushchenko in 2005. Today, Tymoshenko continues her efforts as a “radical reformer.” Yulia is considered to be a likely candidate in the January 2010 Ukrainian presidential elections.

Yulia Tymoshenko urged the politics to create the Democratic coalition as soon as possible and to form a government in order to finally offer the people results that were awaited for the few years now.