Ukrainian premier says she is not Jewish

Inter TV, Kiev
2 Sep 05

[Presenter] Today the journalists asked the prime minister [Yuliya
Tymoshenko] not only about the battle over the Nikopol ferroalloys
plant. Olha Klyuyeva has the details.

[Passage omitted: Tymoshenko reports on the state of the economy]

[Correspondent] Not a single news conference goes without personal
questions. Today the prime minister revealed the secrets of her ethnic
background. It turns out that her mother is Ukrainian, and her father
is, contrary to popular opinion, not Armenian but Latvian.

Tymoshenko said she does not have any Jewish ancestry, as the
transport minister [Yevhen Chervonenko] recently suggested, but
respects representatives of this nationality.

[Correspondent] That they made my father an Armenian and gave my
mother another nationality, I think Yevhen Alfredovych [Chervonenko]
was trying to feel solidarity with me this way. [Audience, Tymoshenko
laughing]. But I would like to say that in any case I am together
with him in the fight against any instances of anti-Semitism in our
country. There is no need to look for additional questionable evidence.

[Correspondent] In order to ask the prime minister about the scandalous
film entitled “Yuliya”, which was made in Russia and produced by
State Duma member [Aleksey] Mitrofanov, the Moscovites even sent
a film crew. The characters of the 26-minute-long erotic film bear
close resemblance to Tymoshenko and the Georgian president [Mikheil
Saakashvili]. Tymoshenko is ready to forgive the filmmakers for this.

[Tymoshenko, in Russian] You know, these things can be done by people
who can only fantasize about sex but who are unable to do anything in
real life. So we must forgive them everything. [Audience, Tymoshenko
laughing, applause]