“Everything was very harsh”: it became known how the search at Tymoshenko’s party office was carried out

After the search began at the Batkivshchyna party office on the evening of January 13 at around 9:30 p.m., MPs from the faction who were in Kyiv at the time started arriving there. However, they were not allowed inside and spent several hours outside.

A source close to Yulia Tymoshenko told journalists this.

“Everything was very harsh: force was used, without regard for who was in front of them; they took phones from Tymoshenko herself and everyone who was in the office, and seized computers. At the same time, they had no court order—no document at all that could explain their actions. They found money. Yulia says it’s part of her declared funds. But they lay the dollars out in front of her and photograph them,” the source said.

According to the source, at a subsequent meeting with faction MPs, Tymoshenko said that an MP from the Servant of the People party had taken on the role of a “torpedo” and tried to record the Batkivshchyna leader, but, she claims, was unable to do so.

In her conversation with allies, Tymoshenko insisted that the recordings presented by NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) were a compilation, and that she would try to prove this through an “international forensic examination.” She has also stated this publicly.