Scholars have defined several " Clans " in Ukrainian politics grouped around businessman and politicians from particular Ukrainian mayor cities ; the " Donetsk-clan " ( Rinat Akhmetov, Viktor Yanukovich and Mykola Azarov ), the " Dnipropetrovsk-clan " ( Yulia Tymoshenko, Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Pinchuk, Sergey Tigipko and Pavlo Lazarenko ), the " Kiev-clan " ( Viktor Medvedchuk and the brothers Surkis ; this clan has also been linked to Zakarpattia ) and the smaller " Kharkiv-clan ".

This has led to coalition governments that would be unusual from a Western point of view ; for example: the Azarov Government which includes the Party of Regions with the financial backing of some Ukrainian oligarchs and the Communist Party of Ukraine and the social-democratic Batkivshchyna and the economically liberal European Party of Ukraine in the Second Tymoshenko Government.

The party also has some prominent members who used to be associated with the opponents of the Orange Revolutions ( the Blue camp ) like the former faction leader of the Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko ( BYuT ) faction in the Ukrainian Parliament Ivan Kyrylenko.

On July 2, 2004 Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc established the Force of the people, a coalition which aimed to stop " the destructive process that has, as a result of the incumbent authorities, become a characteristic for Ukraine ", at the time President Kuchma and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych where the incumbent authorities in Ukraine.

On 2 July 2004 Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc established the Force of the people, a coalition which aimed to stop " the destructive process that has, as a result of the incumbent authorities, become a characteristic for Ukraine ", at the time President Leonid Kuchma and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych were the incumbent authorities in Ukraine.

On 2 July 2004, Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc established the Force of the people, a coalition which aimed to stop " the destructive process that has, as a result of the incumbent authorities, become a characteristic for Ukraine ", the pact included a promise by Viktor Yushchenko to nominate Tymoshenko as Prime Minister if Yushchenko should win the October 2004 presidential election.

According to Tymoshenko her conflict with the President was a political competition and not ideological antagonism, and she emphasized early in February 2009 that the " election struggle for the next presidential elections has virtually begun ".

During a Cabinet of Ministers meeting on 24 February Tymoshenko stated " The moment of truth has arrived: The decision whether or not to side with Yanukovych will show who values the preservation of Ukraine's independence and self-identity and who does not ".

Tymoshenko has accused " many of Ukraine's neighbours " of turning a blind eye to " Yanukovych's strangulation of Ukraine's democracy, some openly celebrate the supposed " stability " that his regime has imposed ".

On the other hand the trial against Tymoshenko has been rated as " selective justice " and " political persecution " in statements by the U. S. A, Russia, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain and other European countries ; and in statements of the European Union, NATO, the European People's Party ; as well as by human rights organizations: Transparency International, Freedom House, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov ( former official of the Russian Ministry of Defense ) said that Russia has long since forgiven this debt and has closed the case against Yulia Tymoshenko: " The new criminal case – it's cheating ".

Tymoshenko has lodged a complaint against the verdict at the European Court of Human Rights, which was given priority treatment by the court.

On 27 February 2012 Tymoshenko's defense lawyer stated Tymoshenko will not file any applications for a pardon since " Yanukovych recognized himself that the trial of Tymoshenko has nothing to do with justice according to European standards ".

A statement by the White House stated the charges and conduct of the trial has raised serious concerns about Ukraine's commitment to democracy and the rule of law and urged Ukraine to release Tymoshenko, as well as other political leaders and former government officials.

According to Tymoshenko: " The European project has not been completed as yet.

About her own attitude towards Ukrainian, Tymoshenko has stated " that today I am thinking and living for Ukrainian ... and the fact that I know Russian very well, I think it is not a secret for you ... you all know that I was brought up in the Russian speaking region in Dnipropetrovsk, to my mind, I spared no effort to speak Ukrainian as soon as possible as I came in the Government ".

The second Tymoshenko Government has spent 1. 6 billion hryvnya on updating coal mines.

In November 2009, Tymoshenko called Ukraine " an absolutely ungovernable country " due to the changes to the Constitution of Ukraine as a part of a political compromise between the acting authorities ( former-President Kuchma ) and opposition during the Orange Revolution ( Tymoshenko has argued those reform were " incomplete " and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc voted against them in December 2004 ).

Yulia Timoshenko and Vladimir Putin ( 19 March 2005 ); in November 2009 Putin stated he found it comfortable to work with Tymoshenko and also praised her political choices.

The Tymoshenko candidacy was also endorsed by prominent Ukrainian politicians such as Borys Tarasyuk, Yuriy Lutsenko, former President Leonid Kravchuk, the Christian Democratic Union, the European Party of Ukraine and Forward, Ukraine !.

On 5 December 2009 she declared she would go into opposition if she would lose the presidential elections, Tymoshenko also complained of flaws in the election legislation and expressed confidence of attempts to be made by her opponents to carry out vote rigging.

Tymoshenko withdrew her appeal on 20 February 2010 after the Higher Administrative Court in Kiev rejected her petition to scrutinize documents from election districts in Crimea and also to question election and law-enforcement officials.

Tymoshenko also stated " At the very least there was rigging of votes using the main methods of falsification, and I think that for history this lawsuit with all the documentation will remain in the Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine, and sooner or later, an honest prosecutor's office and an honest court will assess that Yanukovych wasn't elected President of Ukraine, and that the will of the people had been rigged ".

During a nationally televised address on 22 February Tymoshenko said of President-elect of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and " Yanukovych's team " ( she referred to them in the speech as " The oligarchy "): " They need cheap labour, poor and disenfranchised people who can be forced to work at their factories for peanuts, they also need Ukraine's riches, which they have been stealing for the last 18 years.

Tymoshenko also claimed that she was told by " all the offices of the Prosecutor General's Office " that President Yanukovych had personally instructed the Prosecutor General's Office to find any grounds to prosecute her.

President Yanukovych stated on 24 February 2012 the procedure for pardoning Tymoshenko could start " after her trial " and if she submitted a respective application to the President ; he also mentioned that " we should have all these cases considered again from the point of view of the new Criminal Procedure Code, which will comply with all European standards " and he described the trial of Tymoshenko and other former officials as not " meet European standards and principles " ( in May 2012 First Deputy General Prosecutor of Ukraine Renat Kuzmin also stated this in the European Parliament ).

On 26 January 2012 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution in which it called on President Yanukovych " to consider all possible means to release former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and other members of the former government and also to enable them to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections ".

On 29 February 2012 the European People's Party demanded " immediate release of Yulia Tymoshenko, Yuriy Lutsenko and other political prisoners ; it also insisted the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union should not be signed and ratified until these demands where met.

Tymoshenko wants her country to become a member of the EU, while she is also concerned about antagonizing Russia.

In December 2010, Tymoshenko stated she might run for President in 2015 ; but that this also depended on her family.

Tymoshenko was also dubbed one of the most beautiful women ever to enter politics by the Daily Mail and 20 Minutos in 2009.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has stated ( in November 2009 ) he found it comfortable to work with his ( then ) Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko and also praised her for strengthening Ukrainian sovereignty and building stable ties with Moscow and called the second Tymoshenko Government " efficient and a force for stability ".

On 29 February 2012 the European People's Party demanded " immediate release of Yulia Tymoshenko, Yuriy Lutsenko and other political prisoners ; it also insisted the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union should not be signed and ratified until these demands where met.

During the 2006 and 2007 parliamentary elections the party also took part in the Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko, which won 156 out of 450 seats.

During the parliamentary elections on 26 March 2006 the party also took part in the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.

Former member of All-Ukrainian Union " Fatherland " ( that party was also a member of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc ) Natalia Korolevska was elected party leader on 23 December 2011.

On 2 February 2011 party-leader Tymoshenko claimed members of the “ Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko-Batkivschyna ”- faction had been offered money and places in the election list of the Party of Regions and have been blackmailed into voting for laws introduced by the Azarov Government.

Viktor Yanukovych ( and his Party of the Regions ) and Yulia Tymoshenko ( and her party Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko ) have been since about 2005 the main players in Ukrainian politics.

Since May 2010 a number of criminal cases have been opened against Tymoshenko.

In January 2002 Tymoshenko was involved in a mysterious car accident that she survived with minor injuries – an episode some believe may have been a government assassination attempt.

Within a few days after the coalition agreement had been signed, it became clear that the coalition members mistrusted each other, since they considered it to be a deviation from parliamentary procedures in order to hold a simultaneous vote on Poroshenko as the speaker and Tymoshenko as Prime Minister .< ref >< nowiki > http :// www. jamestown. org / single /? no_cache = 1 & tx_ttnews = 31839 </ nowiki >, Jamestown Foundation ( 4 July 2006 )</ ref >

The prosecutor's main investigation section said Tymoshenko had been called in on 12 May 2010 and formally told that the case, which had been prematurely closed by the Supreme Court of Ukraine in January 2005 without a proper investigation, had been re-opened.

As she left the prosecutor's office on 12 May, Tymoshenko told journalists she had been summoned to see investigators again on 17 May and she linked the move to Russian President Medvedev's visit to Ukraine on 17 – 18 May 2010.

Tymoshenko denied the money had been spent on pensions and insisted it was still at the disposal of the environment ministry and called the investigation against her a witch-hunt.

In the Ukrainian media there has been a lot of speculation regarding the genealogy of Tymoshenko.

Tymoshenko has publicly stated that, like most Soviet citizens, she spoke only Russian in her childhood ( although Tymoshenko had been studying the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian literature at the school for 10 years, as all schoolchildren in Soviet Ukraine ).

Tymoshenko has been ranked three times by Forbes magazine among the most powerful women in the world.

On May 13, 2010 Prime Minister Mykola Azarov claimed that ninety percent of decisions taken by the second Tymoshenko Government had not been implemented.