[14] though they did recruit several politicians from these Russian-speaking provinces like Crimea (Lyudmyla Denisova[15]) and Luhansk Oblast (Natalia Korolevska[16]).

[17] The alliance also had prominent members who had been associated with the opponents of the Orange Revolutions (the "Blue camp") including Ivan Kyrylenko, the former[18] faction leader of the Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) in the Ukrainian Parliament.

[19] Other notable BYuT deputies were Soviet dissident Levko Lukyanenko[20][21] and former UNA-UNSO leader Andriy Shkil.

[26][27][28][29][30][31][32] In January 2001, President Leonid Kuchma dismissed Tymoshenko from the post of Deputy Prime Minister for fuel and energy sector in the cabinet of Viktor Yushchenko.

Following this, and during the Ukraine without Kuchma-protests, Tymoshenko began the loose organisation the National Salvation Committee[33] on 9 February 2001.

[33][34] The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe noted at the time that there were physical assaults and harassment of candidates and campaign workers associated with the BYuT, and other opposition parties leading up to the March 2002 election.

[35] At the parliamentary elections on 30 March 2002, the alliance comprised the following liberal and nationalist member parties:[36][37] The bloc won 7.2%[38] of the popular vote and 22 out of 450 seats.

[59] President Viktor Yushchenko's decree to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) – made during the 2008 Ukrainian political crisis – was never put into action.

[61][62] In October 2009, BYuT endorsed Yulia Tymoshenko, then incumbent Prime Minister, as their candidate for the 2010 Presidential election.

[70] Ten representative of BYuT joined the coalition supporting the Azarov Government as an independent MP in April 2010.

[73] On 26 June 2010 the Political Council Presidium of All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" expelled Oleksandr Feldman, a Verkhovna Rada deputy of the BYuT faction, from the party because he had joined the coalition supporting the Azarov Government the previous month.

[83] 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.

[101] On 15 March 2012, the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Party was expelled from the bloc for alleged "cooperation with the presidential administration and the ruling regime"; the day before the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party party-leader Natalia Korolevska had been expelled from the "Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko-Batkivschyna"-faction.

[102][103] The Ukrainian Social-Democratic Party had stated in December 2011 "that we are doing nothing that can harm the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko... Our task is to collect the most votes in parliament at the 2012 parliamentary elections".

[111] During the election the list won 62 seats and 25.55% of the votes under the proportional party-list system (falling from 30.71% in 2007 for BYuT[38]) and another 39 by winning 39 simple-majority constituencies.

[116][117] The BYuT had advocated the following positions: Late May was marked with another story on a boring subject – betrayal, conspiracy, coup d'état, the usurpation of power and other terrible things.

This has already become a political characteristic of Ukraine.Our Ukraine has been the main ally of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT) during the Orange Revolution and in its aftermath.

[122][123][124][125][126] But early June talks to build a broad coalition to address the economic crisis collapsed; Yulia Tymoshenko accused PoR leader Viktor Yanukovych of betrayal.

Official documents from both the European Union and the United States suggest Tymoshenko's prosecution and imprisonment were politically motivated.