KIEV, Sept. 6 – Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s allies have gained de-facto control over Inter, Ukraine’s most popular television network and a powerful asset ahead of the next presidential election, a person familiar with the situation said Sunday.

The development forced a massive exodus of top managers from the channel, which had been persistently critical in its coverage of Tymoshenko for the past three years, the person said.

Hanna Bezliudna, the general producer at Inter, and her team are expected to officially announce their resignations on Monday, the person said.

Inter - thought to be worth $1 billion - was until recently controlled by Dmytro Firtash, a billionaire co-owner of RosUkrEnergo, a gas trader whose business had been effectively destroyed by Tymoshenko earlier this year.

Most recently the Tymoshenko government has been putting pressure on Firtash’s chemical assets in Ukraine by restricting supplies of natural gas, industry analysts said.

Tymoshenko has long been seeking to obtain control over Inter, which analysts said is an important tool for increasing her popularity ahead of the next presidential election due January 17, 2010.

Valerie Khoroshkovskiy, a co-owner of Inter and a deputy chief of the SBU security service, said earlier this year that Tymoshenko – while already being the prime minister – asked him to sell Inter at a meeting in early 2008.

Tymoshenko later admitted she had discussed the issue with Khoroshkovskiy. But she explained she had been seeking to “attract” an undisclosed foreign investor to Inter.

Tymoshenko allies have been earlier this year vehemently pressing for investigation into the 2005 death of Ihor Pluzhnikov, once the majority owner of Inter.

The investigation was seen by opposition lawmakers as an attempt to reverse a transaction that had eventually led to the ownership of Inter by Khoroshkovskiy and Firtash.

Tymoshenko lawmakers even blocked the podium of Parliament on April 16 – an extreme measure - insisting on the investigation by a special committee led by Andriy Portnov, a close Tymoshenko ally.

But the investigation proceeded quietly for several months and was recently scrapped without any reasonable explanation, perhaps signaling a change of the ownership, analysts said.

The committee was supposed to investigate the acquisition of Pluzhnikov’s property, including Inter, by “unknown persons.”

Pluzhnikov, who owned 79% of Inter, collapsed in June 2005 while vacationing in Karlovy Vary, a Czech spa, and was rushed to a German hospital apparently diagnosed with toxic hepatitis. He died shortly afterwards in the hospital.

Some Ukrainian lawmakers wondered if the mysterious death could be caused by poisoning, but the German hospital had apparently found no foul play.

Pluzhnikov’s death came amid speculation that he had been selling his stake in Inter to undisclosed Russian interests.

Three months later - in September 2005 - Khoroshkovskiy, a successful Ukrainian businessman and a former economy minister, emerged as the buyer of the majority stake in Inter. He paid $200 million for 61% stake in a deal that had closed in July, a month after Pluzhnikov’s death.

Khoroshkovskiy, now the first deputy head of SBU, admitted earlier this year that Firtash had an option to buy an undisclosed stake in Inter. (nr/ez)