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KHARKIV, Ukraine -- On a warm and sunny Sunday morning outside the Kharkiv hospital where Yulia Tymoshenko was transferred from prison late on April 20, about 10 police officers stood guard outside the main entrance -- which is ringed by a high metal-bar fence and a central guard station that leads into a courtyard. However, security was not especially strict, nor was the atmosphere tense about 8 a.m. on Sunday.
Visitors and patients came and went as they pleased outside the aging, rundown Soviet-era hospital with several floors and a dental clinic. People milled about the grounds, which includes a paved path in the back amid woods and stray dogs. Several windows in the hospital were covered with metal cages, but it was not immediately obvious which room Tymoshenko occupies. Several people asked said they did not know, and police officers would not say.
The Kyiv Post walked into the main entrance and started walking up the stairs looking for an administrator before a uniformed hospital security guard stopped to ask where the reporter was going. The guard took a business card and said he'd pass on the message to Tymoshenko if he could, but wouldn't say where her room was located inside the compound. An officer told one of the people outside that Tymoshenko is personally guarded by Security Service of Ukraine agents, with a security detail supplemented by Interior Ministry police and special Berkut units.
There were no protesters or demonstrations in evidence on Sunday as people walked about leisurely as others sat on benches.
Since her arrest in August and her seven-year prison sentence in October, Tymoshenko -- twice the nation's prime minister -- has been suffering from severe back and spinal problems that her supporters say prevent her from doing much more than lying in bed. She accuses President Viktor Yanukovych of trying to kill her, charges the president vehemently denies. She has also refused to be treated in Ukraine, citing lack in trust of Ukrainian doctors and the state penitentiary medical service. Her supporters are trying to get her treated abroad and she has been visited this year by Canadian and German doctors who say she is suffering from serious health problems and is not being adequately treated.
Apr 22 at 09:35 | Kyiv Post
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