Indeed, helping Ukraine’s integration with the West has been officially named one of Lithuania’s national priorities during its EU presidency, which begins in July.

It’s starting with tough love. We approve.

On Feb. 6, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said the failure of Ukraine’s authorities to solve the issue of the jailing of political opponents has jeopardized the country’s relationships with other nations and could postpone the signing of the touted Association Agreement scheduled for November in Vilnius. Kyiv needs to find solutions to what the West views as political persecution in the “nearest future,” she added.

A day later the cavalry arrived with support from EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele, who bluntly said that Ukraine should change and end political persecutions now. Opportunities could close further for Ukraine after the November summit.

So far, however, there is little change in Yanukovych’s stance in the face of this final round of warnings. His references to Tymoshenko’s imprisonment as a “painful issue” as new charges pile up on her review memories of the Yalta Summit in 2011. 

Then, Yanukovych blamed Ukraine’s Soviet-era criminal code, hinting that the problem could be solved by decriminalizing the articles under which Tymoshenko and Lutsenko were charged and later convicted. Instead of following through, parliament passed a new criminal code that ignored the articles, and the prosecutor’s office recently accused Tymoshenko of involvement in the 1996 murder of Donetsk politician Yevhen Shcherban. 

After three years as president with an autocratic-like control over the country’s institutions, and just nine months away from the Vilnius summit, the president will have no one to blame but himself if the Association Agreement isn’t signed. That would be a huge setback for political and economic ties with the affluent EU. 

During his visit to Lithuania Yanukovych pathetically said he needed “time” to address the Tymoshenko issue properly.  The truth is he hasn’t got any.