The Rise and Fall of Yulia Tymoshenko

Hers is an improbable life. She makes billions overnight in a rough industry. She loses most of it and goes into politics. She falls from grace again, but then leads a democratic revolution. She becomes a powerful prime minister and dreams of the top job. She loses the election for president and begins to fade from the scene. But a bare-knuckled political rival won't forget or forgive past slights. On Tuesday, one of his judges throws her in prison for seven years on transparently political charges. Now she's a martyr.

This is Yulia Tymoshenko's journey. So far. Even those who can't place Ukraine on a map—for the record, between Russia and Poland, and the size of France—might recognize her plaited blonde hair and delicate smile. The fragile exterior, of course, conceals steely determination. It might seem unlikely that such an alluring public figure emerged from this drab post-Soviet industrial breadbasket (think Nebraska mixed with Detroit). Yet she could have come from nowhere else.

Ms. Tymoshenko is Proteus in a dress. We're not talking the usual opportunistic policy flip-flops or loose party loyalties, though there is that. Over the past 15 years she has taken on radically contrasting personas. Slavic Joan of Arc is the latest role and I'd bet not the last. 


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