Tymoshenko named the MP who “betrayed” her to NABU
16 January 11:17
Yulia Tymoshenko, a member of parliament and leader of the Batkivshchyna party, said that Igor Kopytin, a member of parliament from the Servant of the People party, had “betrayed” her to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). She made this statement on January 16 during a hearing at the High Anti-Corruption Court, where a preventive measure is being chosen for her, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
The hearing is open to the public and is being broadcast live; prosecutors did not insist on closing the proceedings.
Vitaliy Grechyshkin, a prosecutor with the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, did not file a motion to close the hearing. Tymoshenko’s defense attorney, Oleksandr Gotin, also supported the open trial.
Yulia Tymoshenko herself insisted on the publicity of the case. According to her, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, in her opinion, “staged an information witch hunt,” so the public should be able to see the course of the trial.
After hearing the positions of the parties, the investigating judge decided to hold the hearing in open court. The court hearing is being broadcast live.
Tymoshenko’s position
Before the start of the trial, Yulia Tymoshenko stated that she did not admit to any of the charges. She claims that the audio recordings released by NABU are falsified.
“I never said those words. That conversation never took place in my life. Today, I will provide evidence in court that this audio recording is completely falsified,” the politician said.
She also emphasized that she did not offer money to MPs and did not discuss any scenarios for influencing voting in the Verkhovna Rada. Tymoshenko called the case a “political show” and stated that, in her opinion, there was no crime and no grounds for choosing any preventive measure.
NABU’s “torpedo” among the “Servants of the People”
During the hearing, Vitaliy Grechyshkin, a prosecutor with the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, read out the testimony of a witness who had met with Yulia Tymoshenko the day before and written a statement to NABU.
Tymoshenko believes that the tapes released by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau contain her conversation with Ihor Kopytin, a member of the Verkhovna Rada from the Servant of the People party. In the transcripts of the recordings, he is referred to as “Mazur.”
“He is not just a deputy. This deputy is under criminal investigation by the NABU and is under pressure from the NABU to carry out certain tasks for the NABU. You know that there are certain agreements where they say, ‘dig up something,’ and we will drop your criminal cases in return,” Tymoshenko said.
She said that Kopytin himself asked to meet with her.
“Mr. Kopytin asked to meet with me once, twice, three times. He said that he no longer wanted to be in the Servant of the People faction, that he did not want to work with the majority and the president. He said that the laws being passed were completely anti-Ukrainian and could not be voted on. And he offered to cooperate many times,” Tymoshenko explained.
The head of the Batkivshchyna faction does not deny the fact of the conversation, but says that it was about parliamentary activities, and that part of the recording about the proposal of monetary compensation to deputies for controlled voting was “compiled.”
“Probably, such conversations took place… We are looking for like-minded people… But I clearly state that Kopytin, in order to free himself from criminal liability, handed over [the recording of the conversation] to NABU or did everything to ensure that it was compiled,” she added.
What Tymoshenko says about NABU’s accusations
The leader of Batkivshchyna refuted NABU’s accusations, calling them unfounded and unproven. According to her, more than 30 detectives in full gear and armed came to the party’s office at 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 13. The MP claims that she was alone in the office at the time, which did not even have security. According to her, law enforcement officers arrived at the party’s office in five buses.
She stated that the NABU employees did not have search warrants with them.
The MP also said that her parliamentary documents and personal savings, which she claims are reflected in her declaration, were seized.
Who is Igor Kopytin
Ihor Kopytin is a member of the Verkhovna Rada of the IX convocation (Servant of the People). He was the European champion in hand-to-hand combat in 2009.
According to Chesno, on July 22, 2025, he voted in favor of bill 12414, which made the work of the NABU and SAP dependent on the Prosecutor General. This bill effectively eliminated the independence of anti-corruption agencies and turned them into agencies controlled by the government.
In 2024, Kopytin’s car was involved in an accident on the Kyiv-Odesa highway, as a result of which the MP suffered bodily injuries and was hospitalized.
At the end of 2022, he voted for urban planning reform (#5655), which was implemented in the interests of developers and reduced the influence of citizens on the reconstruction of Ukraine. Due to public opposition, as of early 2024, the president had not signed the bill, and therefore it remains inactive.
In 2020, journalists from Skhemy found out that Kopytin had decided to hire his brother, Volodymyr Kopytin, as a paid assistant.
In 2019, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada of the 9th convocation from the Servant of the People party in constituency No. 129 (Mykolaiv region) as an independent. He is a member of the faction of the same name. He is a member of the Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence.
Until 2018, he was the beneficial owner of Rotor Ukraine, a company that trained aircraft pilots.
From 2017 to 2018, he was the head of the Kazakh company Avtomodern LLC, which was engaged in international trade in auto parts for diesel cars.
From 2009 until his election as a deputy, he was the head of sales and technical maintenance of aircraft and helicopters, as well as an international school for training private and commercial pilots.
He graduated from Odessa National University named after I.I. Mechnikov with a degree in law.
He was born on February 12, 1981, in Legnica, Poland.
What is known about the Tymoshenko case
On January 13, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office announced the exposure of the leader of one of the factions of the Verkhovna Rada for offering illegal benefits to MPs from other political forces for voting “for” or “against” specific bills.
The SAPO statement emphasizes that this is a preliminary legal assessment and that only a court can make final conclusions. The preliminary classification is Part 4 of Article 369 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (offering, promising, or providing an illegal benefit to a public official), which carries a penalty of 4 to 8 years’ imprisonment.
People’s Deputy Oleksiy Goncharenko stated that, according to his information, the SAP had exposed the leader of the Batkivshchyna faction, Yulia Tymoshenko. According to the MP, this concerns negotiations with individual MPs regarding their transition or informal joining of the faction in exchange for money, and the materials were allegedly transferred to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). These statements are the position of an individual politician and do not imply a finding of guilt.
Tymoshenko already has experience of criminal prosecution
The leader of the Batkivshchyna party, Yulia Tymoshenko, has previously been under investigation on several occasions and has experience of serving a sentence. She was first placed in a detention center in 2001, during the presidency of Leonid Kuchma. This occurred after she became an active opponent of the government. At that time, Tymoshenko was charged with gas smuggling and spent about 40 days behind bars.
The second high-profile episode occurred in 2011, during Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency. Tymoshenko was accused of exceeding her official powers when concluding gas contracts with Russia’s Gazprom in 2009. The court sentenced her to seven years in prison.
In fact, Yulia Tymoshenko was imprisoned from August 2011 to February 2014 — a total of about two and a half years. European institutions actively demanded her release, and mass protests were held in Ukraine in her support.
What is known about the Batkivshchyna party
The All-Ukrainian Union Batkivshchyna is a Ukrainian centrist political party. It is led by Ukrainian MP and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
The party was first represented in the Verkhovna Rada in 2002. Since 2008, Batkivshchyna has been a member of the supervisory board of the European People’s Party.
In the 2012 parliamentary elections, the political force participated as part of the united opposition under the Batkivshchyna brand. The list was headed by the then leader of the Front for Change party, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. In 2013, the Front for Change and Reforms and Order parties joined Batkivshchyna.
In the 2014 Verkhovna Rada elections, Yulia Tymoshenko, Nadiya Savchenko, Ihor Lutsenko, Serhiy Sobolev, and Alona Shkrum were among the top five on the electoral list.
Before the early parliamentary elections in 2019, the party formed a political alliance with Serhiy Taruta’s Osnova party and former SBU head Valentyn Nalyvaichenko. The top five on the list at that time were Yulia Tymoshenko, Serhiy Taruta, Valentin Nalyvaichenko, Serhiy Sobolev, and Olena Kondratyuk.
In the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the IX convocation, the Batkivshchyna party is represented by a faction of 25 people’s deputies.
