Moscow - President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine is facing a deepening political crisis following claims that he plotted a journalist's disappearance and the arrest of one of his main opponents, a former deputy prime minister, Ms Yulia Tymoshenko.
Mr Kuchma has been struggling desperately to shrug off the scandal for several months, ever since audiotapes surfaced linking him to the disappearance of Georgi Gongadze, an Internet journalist critical of the authorities. His headless corpse was found in November. Ms Tymoshenko is the most charismatic of the disparate opposition leaders who have united against him.