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Twenty years on, Tymoshenko’s trademark blonde braids are still in place, yet her attitudes towards Kyiv’s western allies have hardened. While she still fully supports Ukraine’s bids to join Nato and the European Union, she is angry over the refusal to allow Kyiv into the western military alliance in the years before Russia’s full-scale invasion. She has also accused the West of taking advantage of the war to “undermine” Ukraine’s independence, even as Russian bombs rain down on its towns and cities.

“Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, western countries — under the threat of withholding loans — have imposed unacceptable control over Ukraine’s state institutions, state-owned banks, and monopolies, undermining the country’s sovereignty. This is cruel and unjust toward a nation at war,” she said during an interview at the offices of her party, Batkivshchyna, or Fatherland.

Her comments represented arguably the sharpest criticism of the West by a leader of a Ukrainian political party since President Putin ordered tanks into Ukraine in 2022, an assault that Kyiv has resisted with the help of US and European weapons.

Tymoshenko’s argument that Kyiv’s sovereignty is in danger is based mainly on the presence of western experts in advisory