The westerners, who include a senior official at the UK’s National Audit Office, are able to vote together to veto potential appointees and their votes carry more weight than the Ukrainian experts in the event of a tie. As a rule, there are six members in the commissions — three foreigners and three Ukrainians. Such international oversight, Tymoshenko said, may have been appropriate in countries such as Afghanistan, Liberia and Sierra Leone, but not in Ukraine.

“Ukraine is not a failed state, as the Kremlin tries to portray it. We are a sovereign European nation, heroically resisting full-scale aggression and defending the values of Europe with weapons in hand,” she said. “We are not Afghanistan.”

During a fiery speech in parliament last month, Tymoshenko described President Zelensky’s clampdown on the western-backed Nabu and Sapo anti-corruption agencies as a “bright day” for Ukraine.

But while Zelensky justified the move as necessary to combat alleged Russian infiltration, Tymoshenko hailed it as a long overdue step towards curbing western control over vital state institutions that she said was rapidly turning Ukraine into a “disenfranchised colony”. She and other Batkivshchyna MPs abstained during last week’s vote to restore independence to the agencies following rare nationwide protests.