Batkivschyna Party leader and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has described the arrests of opposition members and criminal cases opened against them as reprisals against political opponents who can compete with the authorities.
"The repression is the result of the consequences of 2010. People feel unhappy, people don’t feel free, and people now feel worse than in previous years. And so the authorities are confused, they know that they are losing public support and so the only option they have is to remove anyone who can offer them real, clear and very strong competition. And so they are using information blockade and political repression," she said in an interview with Channel 5 late on Tuesday.
Tymoshenko said that the two leaders of opposition parties in parliament, Yevhen Korniychuk of the Ukrainian Social and Democratic Party and Yuriy Lutsenko of the People’s Self-Defense Party, had been arrested and that she had been banned from traveling outside Kyiv.
"Look – two leaders of opposition parties in parliament were arrested ahead of the New Year. Is it a coincidence? Lutsenko and Korniychuk [were arrested], and I, representing the third political party, am under house arrest. It’s not a coincidence – it’s fear and confusion by the authorities, and they know that either they will crack down on real competitors who see the country’s development differently, or they will have to [be responsible] for what they are now doing with the country and with people’s lives," Tymoshenko said.
