The New York-based law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom has paid $11 million or more to avoid a lawsuit by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who blamed the firm for aiding in her political persecution, The New York Time reported on May 10. “Skadden’s Ukraine work, which has already led to federal investigations and steep fines, centered around a report produced by the firm that [former Ukrainian President] Mr. [Viktor] Yanukovych’s allies used to try to justify his government’s treatment of Ms. Tymoshenko, a leading rival of Mr. Yanukovych. She was imprisoned starting in 2011 on abuse of office charges that the international community widely condemned as politically motivated,” it said.
The New York Times said referring to people familiar with the settlement that Skadden paid $11 million or more to settle the case before a lawsuit was filed.
“Funds from the settlement appear to have been passed through [law firm] Reid Collins to Ms. Tymoshenko and [Tymoshenko’s lawyer] Mr. [Serhiy] Vlasenko. That arrangement appears to be reflected in records filed by Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Vlasenko with the Ukrainian government, which show that they each received about $5.5 million from Reid Collins between July and last month,” reads the article.
According to The New York Times, the records do not mention Skadden. In his filings, Vlasenko characterized the money as “foreign income.” Tymoshenko described it in a filing this month as “compensation for the damage caused by the political repression of 2011-2014, which was received in the United States at the stage of precourt settlement.”
Some 13.4% of Ukrainians are ready to vote for leader of the All-Ukrainian Batkivschyna Party Yulia Tymoshenko, 7.6% for showman Volodymyr Zelensky, incumbent President and Civic Position Party heads Petro Poroshenko and Anatoliy Hrytsenko, respectively – 7%, and Opposition Bloc Party head Yuriy Boiko – 6.9%.
These are the results of the joint survey conducted by Social Monitoring, the Yaremko Ukrainian Institute of Social Research, Kyiv International Institute of Sociology and the Rating sociological group.
Poll results show 18.9% are ready to support Tymoshenko, Zelensky – 10.7%, Hrytsenko and Zelensky – 9.9% and Boiko – 8%.
Some 75.8% of respondents said that they definitely intended to vote in the presidential elections in Ukraine or were likely to go to the polls, while 19.5% said they would not vote for sure or were inclined not to participate. Some 13,684 respondents were interviewed. The survey was conducted from September 28 to October 16, 2018 throughout Ukraine, with the exception of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The margin of error does not exceed 0.85%.
Leader of the Batkivschyna party Yulia Tymoshenko believes that the draft national budget for 2019 submitted by the authorities is a budget for the destruction of the economy, since it envisages raising tariffs and freezing minimum wages and pensions, which will lead to the total impoverishment of the population and the destruction of the middle class, according to the official website of the party.
“For the first time in the history of Ukraine, wages and pensions are equal to 43% of the subsistence level. This is the budget of total poverty, saving the tariff policy that is crushing for Ukrainian families – they are increasing by 23%. This is a corrupt and destructive budget for the economy,” Tymoshenko told journalists in the parliament.
According to the leader of Batkivschyna, the minimum wages and pensions provided in the estimates in U.S. dollar terms are 1.7 times less than they were at the beginning of 2014, health care financing has been reduced by 1.6 times.
According to Tymoshenko, it is unacceptable that the budget for 2019 is based on the old tax base, with twice the higher rates than in developed countries, which significantly slows down the development of the economy.
The politician noted that if the government draft budget is adopted, “the economy’s falling, emigration of people to other countries, the destruction of the middle class will continue.”
“This budget, in essence, is a verdict to the country. I hope that the deputies will not risk voting for it,” Tymoshenko stated.
BUDGET, PEOPLE, THREATENS, UKRAINIAN ECONOMY, WELL-BEING, YULIA TYMOSHENKO
Batkivschyna Party Leader Yulia Tymoshenko believes that Ukraine should switch from the crony economy to the social market economy, transform the economic model based on raw materials into the economy of innovative development. “This is a global trend, which was adopted as the basis and the main strategic line, including by the European People’s Party, which member Batkivschyna has been for more than ten years. A harmonious combination of free entrepreneurship with the interests of society is necessary. Today it is obvious that the market cannot be absolutely self-regulating and work in the interests of the public. It has weaknesses in the form of monopolism, ignoring the interests of the development of society, the paradigm that the strongest survives any way,” Tymoshenko said on Friday, September 21, during the presentation of the New Economic Course of Ukraine.
She said that the state should create equal rules for all. “Say “no” to monopolies. They eat any economic system, like any monopoly in any sphere of society’s life. It will be dismantled. We will finish the story with monopolies, including clans,” the leader of Batkivschyna Party said.
Tymoshenko said that the goal for this should be the accelerated economic growth with an annual rate of at least 7%, and the main driving force for all economic changes in the country should be a creative intellectual entrepreneurial class.
The leader of Batkivschyna Party said that the tasks of the monetary policy should be stabilization of the hryvnia, a reduction in inflation, the development of small banks, the introduction of long-term low-interest loans for business, and the control of the National Bank by society.
“And the speculative adventures that have been and are being conducted at the National Bank will be the subject of separate criminal investigations after the change of power: about $13 billion in four and a half years was deduced from the budget of Ukraine, from the banking system of Ukraine on the basis of speculative operations. We got almost as much, a little less, from the IMF [International Monetary Fund]. We need to remove the criminals from the National Bank who killed our currency, destroyed our economy and continue to make money on our grief,” Tymoshenko said.
The leaders of the presidential electoral rating are leader of the Batkivschyna party Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of the Civil Platform party Anatoliy Hrytsenko and the Opposition Bloc party Yuriy Boiko, according to the results of the social research conducted by the Social Monitoring Center and the Ukrainian Institute of Sociological Studies named after A. Yaremenko.
According to the results of the social research presented in Kyiv on Wednesday, 20.3% of Ukrainians willing to vote for Tymoshenko are those who decided that they will take part in the voting in the next presidential election (12.5% of all respondents). Some 14.8% of those polled who plan to go to the polls (9.1% among all respondents) are ready to vote for the leader of the Civil position. Boiko is the next in the rating – 12.3% (7.6%), leader of the Radical Party Oleh Liashko has 10.2% (6.3%).
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko occupies the fifth place, for whom 8.3% of respondents are ready to cast their votes, who confirmed their intention to vote (5.1% of all respondents).
Batkivshchyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko leads the pack of presidential candidates, according to the results of a poll conducted by the Rating sociological group from July 20 through August 3, 2018. When asked who respondents would vote for in the event of presidential elections next Sunday, 17.7% of those who will take part in the vote named Tymoshenko. She was followed by the leader of Civil Position Party Anatoliy Hrytsenko with 10.7%, Opposition Bloc leader Yuriy Boiko with 8.9%, Radical Party leader Oleh Liashko with 8.5% and incumbent Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko with 8.3%.
Some 8% of respondents said they would vote of Servant of the People Party leader Volodymyr Zelensky and musician Svyatoslav Vakarchuk each, and 5.9% for “For Life” Party leader Vadym Rabinovych. The rating of other candidates is less than 3%. Almost one in five did not decide.
According to the results of the poll, Tymoshenko has strong electoral positions in all macro regions, with relatively higher indicators in the western, central and southern regions of the country. The main electoral base of Hrytsenko is more concentrated in the western and central regions, while Poroshenko is supported more or less evenly in all macro regions, with the exception of eastern regions. Liashko is more supported in southern and central regions of the country, and Vakarchuk in western regions. Supporters of Boiko, Rabinovych and Zelensky are concentrated in eastern and southern regions.
Poroshenko continues to lead in the anti-rating category, with 50.4% of respondents saying they would not vote for him under any circumstances. He is followed by Tymoshenko, Liashko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who would not be supported in any case by 26-29% of those polled.
Some 16% of respondents believe that the next president will be Tymoshenko, 12.7% see Poroshenko as their president, 6.7% – Boiko, 4.7% – Zelensky, 3.7% – Liashko, 3.4% – Hrytsenko, 2.9% – Vakarchuk and 1.9% – Rabinovych. Almost 40% of respondents could not predict who will be the next president of the country.
From 45% to 65% of respondents said they know little what the leading presidential candidates plan to do once in office.
There is a relatively higher level of awareness among respondents of the plans of Tymoshenko (46%). Fewer know about the initiatives of Liashko (39%) and Poroshenko (36%). Almost 60% of respondents do not know anything about the plans of Boiko and Hrytsenko. Two thirds of the respondents know nothing about the plans of Zelensky and Vakarchuk.
Almost half of those polled said they would definitely vote in the presidential elections, one in five more likely than not.
The survey was conducted by the Rating sociological group from July 20 to August 3, 2018. The study covered the entire adult population of Ukraine using a representative sample based on age, gender, region and type of residence. Some 2,000 persons took part. The survey’s margin of error is no more than 2.2%.
