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Opposition figure rejects claims by country’s anti-corruption authorities that she was involved in vote-buying scheme

Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been accused of heading a vote-buying scheme in parliament by the country’s top anti-corruption authorities, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Tymoshenko, leader of Ukraine’s Batkivshchyna party, has been served with a notice of suspicion by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (Nabu) after it searched her Kyiv office overnight into Wednesday, the people said.

Nabu, the country’s top independent anti-corruption body, confirmed the searches of an “opposition party leader” but did not name Tymoshenko in a statement and lengthy video published on social media.

Tymoshenko called the allegations “political” and said the search of her office was “nothing more than a grandiose PR stunt” that had “absolutely nothing to do with law or justice”, in a statement provided through her press secretary.

“I categorically reject all these absurd accusations,” she said.

People involved in the probe confirmed to the FT that a woman with a blonde crown braid — Tymoshenko’s signature hairstyle — whose face is pixelated in the Nabu video is the former political firebrand who led the country’s 2004 pro-democracy Orange revolution to become Ukraine’s first woman prime minister in 2005.

Her notice of suspicion widens a political scandal roiling parliament since late last year that involves several sitting lawmakers, including some from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s ruling party, whom Nabu accuses of taking part in the scheme.

Tymoshenko is a staunch political opponent of Zelenskyy, although like most Ukrainian political leaders, she has largely refrained from publicly criticising the president in wartime. In the past year, she has taken a more critical stance, including against a deal signed by Kyiv and Washington in April offering the US special access to Ukraine’s critical mineral reserves.

She had supported a widely criticised law forced through parliament by Zelenskyy and his ruling party in July that reduced the powers of Nabu and its sister agency, the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (Sapo). Public protests and western criticism forced Zelenskyy and parliament to reverse course soon after.

Nabu said in a statement that “the suspect” had “initiated discussions with certain MPs on introducing a systemic mechanism for providing unlawful benefits in exchange for loyal behaviour during votes”. The people familiar with the matter confirmed to the FT that ‘‘the suspect’’ referred to Tymoshenko.

“It was not about one-off arrangements but a regular co-operation mechanism that envisaged advance payments and was calculated to last for a long period,” Nabu added in the statement.

In the full Nabu video, a person who sounds like Tymoshenko is heard offering cash to an MP in return for support on specific votes. The woman believed to be Tymoshenko is also heard promising payment for recruited allies and describing plans to co-ordinate voting instructions via the Signal messaging app.

An image of a Signal chat shared in the Nabu video appears to show that the MPs allegedly involved in the scheme were instructed to hold up the appointment of Zelenskyy’s chosen ministers, who eventually were voted in on Tuesday.

The agency also filmed a raid on Tymoshenko’s party office, showing stacks of $100 bills laid out in front of the woman wearing a crown of braids.

Tymoshenko said investigators “found nothing, and therefore simply confiscated my work phones, parliamentary documents and personal savings”, which she said had been “fully reflected” in the official asset declaration required by sitting MPs.

“This is not the first political order against me,” she added.

A Ukrainian court in 2011 found Tymoshenko guilty of abuse of power for brokering a natural gas imports contract signed with Russia when she served as prime minister and sentenced her to seven years in prison. The case was widely viewed inside Ukraine and by the west as a politically motivated attempt by then pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych to sideline his chief opponent.

She was released after Yanukovych fled Ukraine at the culmination of the 2014 Euromaidan revolution.

In classic fashion for which the political leader and survivor is known, she vowed on Wednesday to bounce back from the latest moves against her: “No one can break me or stop me.”

European nuclear start-ups shift focus to US in search for funding

American investors galvanised by possibilities of technology they hope can power expected AI boom

Europe’s cutting-edge nuclear start-ups are preparing to switch operations to the US as they seek deeper financing and stronger government support, warning they are losing out to well-resourced rivals in the race to develop the technology. 

President Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for the sector, and the potential of a new generation of small modular reactors (SMRs), has galvanised US investors’ interest in the possibilities for technology they hope can power the expected AI boom. 

This has helped fuel eye-popping valuations for some US nuclear developers, and helped others to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, far exceeding the sums available in Europe, where some start-ups have struggled with liquidity. 

European developers of advanced nuclear reactors told the FT that moving some parts of their business to the US or setting up new operations there was imperative if they wanted to stay in what has also become a global fight against Chinese developers.

Newcleo, a Franco-Italian start-up developing lead-cooled reactors that use nuclear waste as fuel, is eyeing the US for “a third of our deployment”, including a possible fuel fabrication site in South Carolina. 

Chief executive Stefano Buono said the US would replace the UK in its plans, having opted to abandon the British market last year.

“In the UK we had zero support, and no financial support,” Buono said. “The government was not really backing advanced modular reactors, they started supporting the third generation, not the fourth generation.”

Aerospace, defence and energy company Rolls-Royce has been selected by the UK to build a future fleet of reactors and has funding pledges as a result, but its designs use the older pressurised water reactors rather than more experimental technology. 

“It’s clear [the US] are strongly supporting advanced nuclear in a way that Europe is not,” said Kiki Lauwers, chief executive of Franco-Dutch developer Thorizon, another company seeking to tap the booming North American market.

Lauwers pointed to hefty US energy department subsidies for American nuclear companies such as Amazon-backed X-energy or Bill Gates’ TerraPower — the latter received $2bn to fund its first reactor — matched by large private fundraisings. Europe lacks the capital depth to do the same, she added.

French nuclear start-up Naarea struggled to raise funding and went into receivership last September — a procedure to protect it from creditors. A court will this week rule on a buyout offer from Luxembourg and Poland-based waste treatment group Eneris, leaving its next steps in the balance.

Chief executive Jean-Luc Alexandre had been eyeing moving operations to the US, telling the FT late last year that was where nuclear companies could “go faster”.

The company, which aims to use liquid salt as a reactor coolant, raised an initial €100mn from family offices in France and a further €10mn from a French government scheme in 2023. But it had estimated its funding needs at €2bn.

“Europe is not where it needs to be on this right now,” Alexandre said.

Europe is home to one of the world’s top nuclear operators, France’s EDF, which built dozens of large reactors between the 1970s and 1990s. French SMR developers and related suppliers account for the biggest chunk of members of a 350-strong European SMR alliance.

Industrial companies and data centres are pinning their hopes on powerful but easily replicable small reactors to fuel their electricity needs and plans to reduce emissions.

But even in France, the state has earmarked about €1bn in funding for nuclear start-ups, when advanced reactor developers need about €1bn each, according to French energy regulator estimates.

Christophe Grudler, a lawmaker in the European parliament, said more EU financing would become available in the coming months for nuclear research and prototypes with project-based funding.

He also noted that while Europe might be slower to advance, it did so meaningfully. “The Trump of one day may not be the Trump of tomorrow. Europe’s a reliable partner,” he said. 

But some European start-ups courting the US said they had already seen a pay-off. “The moment we said we were going to do operations in the US, our own existing investors started to put in more money,” said Newcleo’s Buono.

He warned that the next two years would be crucial for the sector, as prototypes were built out and expanded, and that many businesses might not survive.

“It’s a challenging phase, a sort of death valley,” Buono said. “A lot of companies fail to deliver in this phase.”

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EVs central to carmakers’ Europe strategy despite petrol ban easing

Benefits of EU’s proposed rule changes are limited and too costly, say industry executives

Global car executives will continue to place electric vehicles at the centre of their European product strategy after Brussels granted only “very small flexibility” in its revision of the 2035 petrol ban.

“We are on a transition to EVs,” Sjoerd Knipping, chief operating officer of Kia Europe, told the FT in an interview.

The changes in the EU’s regulations “could give us a bit more flexibility here and there, but it doesn’t mean that we are going to turn over our strategy from one day to the next”, he said at the Brussels Motor Show, where the South Korean carmaker unveiled its cheapest and smallest electric car, expected to be priced at less than €30,000. 

Last month, Brussels proposed scrapping a law forcing carmakers to cut their emissions to zero by 2035. Although the loosening of the petrol ban sparked fears among environmental groups that carmakers would slow their shift to EVs as in the US, industry executives cautioned that the changes proposed by the EU were limited and too costly to implement.

While carmakers will be allowed to carry on releasing 10 per cent of their 2021 emissions and to continue selling some petrol engines and hybrids, the European Commission has mandated that the emissions be offset by using low-carbon steel and sustainable fuels. 

One car executive estimated that the stringent conditions implied that manufacturers would only be allowed to release about 3 per cent of their 2021 emissions.

“Our strategy in terms of product remains the same,” said Bruno Vanel, head of product at Renault. He stressed that the French carmaker would continue developing affordable EVs alongside other options such as hybrids and range-extended EVs using small backup fuel engines.

“The direction is clear towards EVs. That’s for sure. It doesn’t change,” he added.

Antonio Filosa, the chief executive of Stellantis, has sharply criticised the recent proposed changes in EU climate policy, saying Brussels had not gone far enough to revitalise the European car industry which is under pressure from EV transition costs.

Emanuele Cappellano, the new head of the group’s European operations, said more flexibility was needed to provide a wide range of products not only to meet consumer needs but also to maintain production volumes across the continent. 

Still, Cappellano said that the company was “not claiming for a comeback to a combustion engine”.

Critics of the EU’s latest easing of the 2035 ban have pointed to the risk of western car manufacturers falling behind Chinese rivals, who have already made significant advances into Europe with more affordable EVs equipped with advanced software.

In 2025, sales of electric cars in Europe rose 31 per cent from a year earlier to a record 2.9mn vehicles, accounting for 24 per cent of the bloc’s new car market, according to research firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Among the Chinese brands, Zeekr, the EV unit of Geely, said it would continue to push for expansion of EV offerings in Europe this year.

“It’s obvious that the better technology is EV . . . it’s just that the entire industry needs to accept that and put the right focus and balance on it,” said Lothar Schupet, acting chief executive of Zeekr Europe.

Ermotti’s UBS legacy leaves space for a third act

Why would someone like the Swiss banker step away just when things are about to get fun?

Boomerang executives are normally a sign of a company in crisis. Sergio Ermotti’s return to UBS in 2023 was a classic case, with the Swiss banker coming back to lead the difficult integration of Credit Suisse in the biggest bank deal since the 2008 financial crisis. As he prepares to take flight again, however, Ermotti may have set himself up for a third stint that begins on more positive terms.

Ermotti is planning to step down as chief executive next year. The foursome of internal candidates fighting to replace him includes wealth management co-heads Iqbal Khan and Robert Karofsky, chief operating officer Bea Martin and asset management chief Aleksandar Ivanovic. Already, however, people close to the bank whisper that Ermotti could be back again within a few years to replace Colm Kelleher as chair.

His performance bolsters the case. The integration of Credit Suisse has, so far, been surprisingly smooth, while UBS’s wealth management franchise remains the envy of European rivals. Plans to boost profitability in the US by getting a full banking licence probably won’t pay off by the time Ermotti and Kelleher are holding job interviews — a shame for Americas head Karofsky — but performance should improve over time.

A share price increase of 114 per cent since Ermotti was announced as second-time CEO is actually an underperformance relative to an index of European bank stocks, but the weakness was largely due to aggressive Swiss regulatory proposals that were outside his control. The Swiss government wants UBS to raise tens of billions of dollars of extra capital to reduce the risk of a future crisis.

The next chief will have to deal with implementing the final changes. Even a compromise solution that limits the cost to UBS will be a challenge at a time when most international rivals are benefiting from looser rules. But at least the uncertainty should be largely over, making it an execution issue rather than a diplomatic fight.

Meanwhile, the strong state of UBS’s underlying businesses will give it more freedom to pursue the sort of exciting plans that were previously off the table, such as trying to speed up US expansion with a big acquisition. That could make another Ermotti return more likely: investors would surely be reassured to have someone around with his experience of large integrations.

Less ambitious executives might prefer to follow a combined 13 years in charge with a permanent vacation. But after a decade and a half of restructuring, UBS could soon be on the front foot for a change. And the original purpose of a boomerang, after all, is for hunting. Why would someone like Ermotti retire just when things are about to get fun?