Blue &Yellow: Politics and Economics in Ukraine

As reported, the Ukrainian government hired Washington DC based Trout Cacheris PLLS to evaluate the financial and economic activity of the previous government from 2008 through the first quarter of 2010.

Trout Cacheris, PLLC, will lead a team of professional legal and consulting firms that will include Kroll, Inc. and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP

Yes, this seems like an attempt by the new government to appear impartial in a politically motivated investigation into the previous government's action. Tymoshenko is also being investigated for a 2004 bribery case that has just been reopened.  While Tymoshenko may have broken the law, I doubt that the move against her is purely legally motivated.   Alena Ledeneva writes in How Russia Really Works that “the pervasiveness of rule violations, punishment is bound to occur selectively on the basis of criteria developed outside the legal domain” (pg. 13). Legal action, in other words, can be a political tool.   The timing of the investigation, after a fiasco in the Rada, suggests that the new regime wants to weaken a major opponent of the regime. Last time I checked former President Kuchma had not been arrested for anything during his time as president, yet Tymoshenko finds herself a subject of multiple criminal investigations.