Yulia Tymoshenko
People's Deputy of Ukraine 2nd convocation January 16, 1997 – May 12, 1998 Elected as: Independent, Kirovohrad Oblast, District No.229 3rd convocation May 12, 1998 – March 2, 2000 Elected as: Independent, Kirovohrad Oblast, District No.99 4th convocation May 14, 2002 – February 4, 2005 Elected as: Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, No.1 5th convocation May 25, 2006 – June 14, 2007 Elected as: Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, No.1 6th convocation November 23, 2007 – December 19, 2007 Elected as: Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, No.1 8th convocation November 27, 2014 – Present Elected as: Fatherland, No.2 Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko (Ukrainian: Ю лія Володи мирівна Тимоше нко, pronounced [ˈjulʲijɐ voɫoˈdɪmɪrʲivnɐ tɪmoˈʃɛnko], née Hrihyan, Грігян, born 27 November 1960) is a Ukrainian politician and businesswoman. She co-led the Orange Revolution and was the first woman appointed Prime Minister of Ukraine, serving from 24 January to 8 September 2005, and again from 18 December 2007 to 4 March 2010. Tymoshenko is the leader of the All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" political party that has 19 seats in parliament and has Tymoshenko as its parliamentary faction leader. In the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election the party had received the second most votes, winning 101 of parliament's 450 seats. In the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election Tymoshenko received 12.81% of the vote, coming in second place after Petro Poroshenko who won the election with 54.7%. Tymoshenko finished second in the Ukrainian presidential election of 2010 runoff with a 3.5% loss to the winner, Viktor Yanukovych. In the first round she had received 25.05% (in 2010). After the 2010 presidential election, a number of criminal cases were brought against her. On 11 October 2011 she was convicted of embezzlement and abuse of power, and sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay the state $188 million. The prosecution and conviction were viewed by many governments – most prominently the European Union, who repeatedly called for release of Yulia Tymoshenko as the primary condition for signing the EU Association Agreement, and the USA – and international organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as politically biased. She was released on 22 February 2014, in the concluding days of the Euromaidan revolution, following a revision of the Ukrainian criminal code that effectively decriminalized the actions for which she was imprisoned. She was officially rehabilitated on 28 February 2014. Just after Euromaidan revolution, the Ukrainian Supreme Court closed the case and found that "no crime was committed". Prior to her political career, Tymoshenko was a successful but controversial businesswoman in the natural gas industry, becoming by some estimates one of the richest people in the country. In 2005 Tymsohenko placed third in the Forbes Magazine's list of the world's most powerful women. Tymoshenko strives for Ukraine's integration into the European Union and strongly opposes the membership of Ukraine in the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Tymoshenko supports NATO membership for Ukraine.