KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, tested the new coronavirus and is in a serious state with a fever, her party spokeswoman said Sunday.
Tymoshenko, 59, prime minister twice before his defeat in the 2010 presidential election, has become the first high-level Ukrainian politician known to have contracted COVID-19. Parliament has been on summer recess since mid-July.
“His condition is severe, his temperature reached 39 (degrees Celsius), said his party spokeswoman in the homeland, refusing to say whether Tymoshenko had been hospitalized or give more details.
Ukraine has noticed a sharp increase in infections this week, with a new total of 24 hours out of 2328 reported cases on Saturday. [L8N2FO0N6] The total number of infections reached 104,958 with 2,271 deaths.
Tymoshenko was raised as co-leader of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, that pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko was shown as president after a court said the election result had been manipulated in favor of his pro-Moscow enemy.
She served twice as Prime Minister Yushchenko before the two fought after years of political unrest.
Tymoshenko ran for president in 2010 and lost to Russia-backed Viktor Yanukovych, and in 2011 he was sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of power, which she denied, calling the accusations politically motivated.
He was released as a criminal in early 2014 after Yanukovych was overthrown in a popular uprising that set Ukraine on track to strengthen ties with the European Union and the United States.
(Reporting through Natalia Zinets; Edited through Mark Heinrich)