Premier Yulia Tymoshenko says that the Prosecutor General forced the government to renew Vanco’s license.

She announced this live on Channel 5 on Tuesday evening.

“While I was driving here, even the Prosecutor General, which is owned by clans, protested and forced the minister to renew (the license) and once again return the Black Sea shelf to this company (Vanco),” said Tymoshenko.

“This is a great misfortune that today there is nobody on a high level in Ukraine who can protect the national interests. And natural gas isn’t simply a national interest for Ukraine. Our government raised this issue because we’re in no way involved in these transactions and want Ukraine to have natural resources and gas,” she added.

Answer the question whether the Vanco case is the first half step toward impeachment of the President, Tymoshenko said:

“I can talk about this after the completion of the international investigation, because no country has seen such shady transactions of this scale – when entire seas are handed over under a corrupt scheme and later this is announced as a victory for Ukraine.”

She expects the investigation to last no more than one month. “Everything is so obvious that I don’t think much time will be needed,” said Tymoshenko.

“I am ashamed that the Ukrainian leadership it capable of such things. They’re looking at us as if we were Papuans, who exchanged bars of gold for rattles,” added the Premier.

As has been reported, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko ordered an international investigation into the case related to the activities of Vanco, which in accordance with the decision of the previous government won the competition to develop the Black Sea shelf.