The protests in Ukraine's capital Kiev – which started after the government went against the public decision to join the EU in favour of retaining close ties to Russia – are escalating at an alarming rate. Anti-government protestors have occupied four buildings, including the justice ministry and city hall, and riot police have reacted by allegedly using live rounds on their people. Whatever the truth, five people died this weekend, two of gun-shot wounds – and some protestors are claiming government agents have been torturing their own citizens.
This morning, Eugenia Tymoshenko – the daughter of ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia, who is currently imprisoned – waded into the debate too, with a message from her mother. 'Her message was of course to express the tragedy of the deaths of the people who were shot by police in the line of fire. But also those who were kidnapped and tortured and put out to the forests outside of Kiev to freeze to death,’ she told BBC Radio 4's *Today *programme. ‘She said that the Yanukovych government didn’t leave us any choice than to fight for our own lives and to fight for our freedom.’
This weekend, opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk rejected President Yanukovych's offer to appoint him Prime Minister, insisting that new elections must be called. (Currently, a vote is not due until 2015).
When asked by the interviewer if Yulia's party, the Fatherland Faction (nowhere near as fascist as that name suggests; they're actually pro-EU) would be willing to negotiate with the government, Eugenia replied: ‘Negotiations with such president that allows torturing people his own people, beating them up and also killing them and not punishing anybody that is responsible for these illegal acts… negotiations with him are unacceptable.'
Eugenie, 33, who was educated in the UK but is now living in Ukraine, also insisted that the protestors wanted things to remain peaceful. ‘Our side, the opposition side, is making everything possible for such peaceful legitimate outcome. Our leaders went to negotiate, but instead they received demands like terrorists would say, like ‘we will release hostages when you release the buildings.’
Yulia, 53, was president of the ex-Soviet country until 2011, when she was arrested on charges of relating to abuses of power following an expensive oil deal she signed with Russia. She was even re-arrested while in prison. Most international reactions to her imprisonment have been that it was unfair, with Ban Ki-Moon, the Dalai Lama, Angela Merkel and Hillary Clinton all calling for her release, or at the very least a fair and impartial trial following due process. Eugenie has consistently campaigned for her mother's release from prison, where she believes she could be in danger. Last week, inspectors were forced to deny claims the electromagnetic field levels in Tymoshenko’s prison cell are rising. Another sign, protestors point out, that the government and police are corrupt.
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Picture: Corbis
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.