KIEV, March 28 - RAPSI. The Prosecutor's Office has launched a lawsuit against former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to recover $2.4 million in damages, Deputy Prosecutor General Evegeny Blazhivskiy said on Wednesday. The case concerns financial crimes, which were allegedly committed during her tenure as the head of United Energy Systems of Ukraine.

“The prosecutor's office has filed a claim for damages. It seeks the whole amount of the losses stated in the criminal case – 19.5 million hryvnias (about $2.4 million),” he told journalists.

Blazhivskiy added that the case will be sent to the court within five days.

Tymoshenko was sentenced in October 2011 to seven years in prison for abuse of power in signing gas contracts between Ukraine's Naftogaz and Russia's Gazprom in 2009. In late December, she was taken to the Kharkiv penal colony. Soon after the sentencing, the tax police resumed the investigation into four criminal cases against Tymoshenko in connection with her activities as head of United Energy Systems of Ukraine in the 1990s. In the case, Tymoshenko has been charged with attempted public funds embezzlement, non-disclosure of foreign currency proceeds amounting to over $165 million, and tax evasion in the amount of over $5.8 million.