Threatened with 5-10 years imprisonment by the anti-corruption organs, the ever-colourful Yuliya Tymoshenko has certainly livened up the already-entertaining Ukrainian political safari. Here’s a fragment from her recent sparring with the judge of the high anti-corruption court of Ukraine:

Tymoshenko: This is Stalinism! Soon they will be judging with troikas again!

Judge: In 1937, they didn’t use “preventive detention,” Yulia Volodymyrivna.

Lawyer: How will they be able to control Yulia Volodymyrivna, who will be abroad, with control measures?

Judge: I think the police would gladly go abroad for her escort.

Tymoshenko’s Lawyer: It’s upsetting to me that this parliament can be bribed for 10,000 dollars.

Judge: And what price should we be talking about?

January 17

But that’s not all. Here’s what she said on the 16th:

Even if they try to forcibly remove me from Ukraine, I will not go anywhere. Because when I give my main speech address and explain what is happening to the country today, what this whole pack of animals is doing, you will clearly understand that not only will I not go anywhere, but I will stay here until the country is liberated from them.

…I will remain here until the country is freed from this, essentially, fascist regime.

…

The next electoral campaign after the end of the war will not be about East versus West of Ukraine. It will be about who stands for a sovereign country and who will be puppets, essentially turning Ukraine into a hybrid colony. That is where the political struggle will take place.

We are uniting not only parliament, but also society, regional elites, and central elites. We are doing this work every day, because if this work is not done, the next five years will be the last years in the life of independent Ukraine.

The country will have a coat of arms, a flag, and an anthem, but beyond that we will have nothing. Our people will be scattered all over the world. And here there will be beautiful, socially oriented corporations that will manage their own interests — not those of Ukrainians.

As proof of this, a new Labor Code is now being introduced in Ukraine, under which working people are practically deprived of rights guaranteed by international law: guarantees of an eight-hour working day, collective agreements, protection for pregnant women, the prohibition of child labor, and so on. All of this is annulled in this Labor Code.

What is needed is not a people, dear friends, but slaves who will service foreign trillion-dollar business empires on our territory. And every law we oppose today is being adopted precisely for this purpose.

Of course, Tymoshenko said nothing about fascism when she and her MPs voted for brutal mobilization and Zelensky’s other undemocratic bills. But more on her voting patterns later.

One of the few characters to outshine Tymoshenko in terms of flavour, imprisoned oligarch and former Zelensky patron Igor Kolomoisky, has also given his inimitable take on the affair from one of his never-ending court appearances. Kolomoisky’s dialogue has gone viral, like everything he focuses his glorious wit on. He highlighted the absurd manner in which the NABU has tried to tar Tymoshenko by sharing a video of her with $40,000 USD on her office desk:

Kolomoisky: Yes, Yulia Volodymyrivna, that’s something of course. But what — was there really a lot of money there? She’s a hungry lady… What good is there from 40,000, only scraping by — and yet they go and disturb an elderly woman in the middle of the night.

Aide: She says: ‘Read my declaration — everything is there.’
Kolomoisky: So they found it at her place?
— No, at the office on Turovska Street.
Kolomoisky: And she said it was hers.
— Yes.

Kolomoisky: So what — doesn’t she have the right? By the age of 65 she hasn’t earned 40,000? I think she’s earned a bit more than that.
— And that’s exactly what she says.
Kolomoisky: She has a declaration.
— Well, yes.

Kolomoisky: So why did they come after her?
They even announced a suspicion.
— They already issued it.

Koomoisky: And they decided to impose a preventive measure again in this same building — the one where Yanukovych’s people put her away for three years [2011-2014 – EIU].
— No.
Kolomoisky: She said that Yanukovych’s storm troopers later tried to cover themselves with a fig leaf.

[aide shows Kolomoisky the video of the NABU raiding Tymoshenko’s office]

Kolomoisky: That’s it. It’s just pathetic.
Look, Yulia Volodymyrivna — some miserable four little bundles laid out.
And all of this after a full night operation, with full staging and showmanship.
She even showed her knee, exposed it to the camera.

[About the NABU] Now Yulia Volodymyrivna will tell you about your ‘agency’ — what kind of body you are, not even a body but a member, as it’s called.
Your ‘organ.’

As usual, I must agree with Mr Kolomoisky. Tymoshenko looked at marvellous as ever, even when raided at an odd hour by over a dozen heavily armed men. One might even wonder if she was waiting for them, but no need — she always looks immaculate.

It’s hard to shake the feeling that Tymoshenko is loving the show. After all, the NABU operation against her has granted so many opportunities for dramatic grandstanding and posing as the only resistance to globalist stalinist anti-worker fascism. She’s played the oppressed political prisoner twice before, why not again? Though I suspect that this time, the western press will pay far less attention…

Besides, it isn’t just the limp-wristed atlanticists at the NABU that are against her. It turns out that to entrap Tymoshenko, the anti-corruption organs (NABU) turned to the services of a quite interesting individual: a captain of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) – the intelligence agency meant to conduct external, not internal operations.

The Tymoshenko operation is hence far more than a mere anti-fraud crackdown. At the centre of it all is Zelensky’s threatened parliamentary majority, which Tymoshenko was apparently bribing other MPs to destroy. Why is military intelligence so interested in preserving Zelensky’s control over parliament? How exactly does Tymoshenko threaten the parliamentary majority, and what would happen if she destroyed it? And what new parliamentary coalition is emerging?

The agent provocateur

Tymoshenko has now named the MP responsible for entrapping and recording her offering a bribe — MP Igor Kopytin of Zelensky’s ‘Servant of the People’ fraction. Tymoshenko does not deny that she talked with Kopytin, but claims that the tapes released by the NABU are highly edited and misleading. According to her, the ‘blackmailed’ Kopytin asked to see her first.

Tymoshenko’s naming of Koptyin has since been confirmed. On January 16, Tymoshenko’s lawyers tried to summon him to court, but the prosecutor stated that measures for conspiracy (security) had been applied to Mr Koptyin. The court sided with the prosecutor, effectively confirming that it was Kopytin who had secretly recorded Tymoshenko. Naturally, Tymoshenko also accused him of being a ‘pro-Russian’ agent.

In fact, Tymoshenko is understating matters by claiming that Kopytin entrapped her merely because the NABU was blackmailing him with evidence of his own corruption. Accusing Koptyin of being a Russian agent is particularly ironic.

That’s because Kopytin has been known to be a captain of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) since 2024. That information was first released by the western-funded, liberal nationalist publication Ukrainska Pravda.

It all came out in August 2024, when MP Kopytin, a totally unknown figure then, got in a car crash.

Kopytin was able to avoid any inspection by police because of his military documentation – as a captain of the GUR. Ukrainska Pravda was able to get a photograph of these documents from law enforcement sources:

Journalists also noticed he often takes selfies with the head of the GUR, Kyrylo Budanov. Given Budanov’s packed schedule, Kopytin clearly isn’t a nobody in the GUR.

The car he was driving belongs to his aide, Oleksiy Datchenko. According to Ukrainska Pravda, he also introduced himself to police at the scene as a representative of the GUR. Shortly after, pro-Zelensky MP Mariana Bezuhla wrote about Kopytin as an influential GUR officer that recommended who to appoint to top government security positions.

That isn’t Kopytin’s only important friend. David Arakhamia, head of Zelensky’s parliamentary fraction and an ally of Budanov’s, has already made a statement praising Kopytin as a loyal voter. He claimed to know nothing about Kopytin’s role in the NABU operation against Tymoshenko.

Indeed, Kopytin’s parliamentary record shows that he has always voted in line with the demands of Zelensky and Arakhamia’s party. Journalists from Kopytov’s hometown confirm that he has been close with Arakhamia since at least 2019, that the two apparently ‘communicate constantly’. The two men both come from the southeastern city of Nikolaev.

For his part, Kopytin denies taking part in the NABU’s operation. Nevertheless, he praises the work of the anti-corruption organs. Ironic, given that he was one of those who voted for the anti-NABU bill 12414 back in July 2025, but it happens. Arakhamia demanded it at the time. Kopytin also voted for the subsequent law annulling bill 12414, introduced as soon as Zelensky realized that the EU wouldn’t let him get away with destroying the NABU’s independence. Kopytin is a loyal voter.

Of course, Koptyin doesn’t deny being a GUR agent. In fact, he is fairly open about that. His telegram is filled with content featuring the GUR. In this September 2025 photo, he (second from left) poses alongside head of the GUR Budanov (second from right).

I also learned something new from Koptyin’s social media — that GUR special forces units live by the writings of the Talmud.

Kopytin is even a representative of the coordination headquarters for dealing with prisoners of war — POW exchanges and the concomitant highly sensitive negotiations with Russia are the sole preserve of the GUR.

So, to get things straight with Kopytin — this is an old friend of David Arakhamia, the head of Zelensky’s parliamentary fraction, and a former (of course…) employee of Kirillo Budanov, who is currently in charge of Zelensky’s presidential administration. Arakhamia is in charge of getting enough votes in parliament for Zelensky’s legislation, and Budanov is in charge of keeping the country as a whole under control.

The vanishing majority

The situation in parliament makes it clear why Arakhamia and Budanov have had to make use of an asset like Kopytin.