'Serious concern'

EU commissioner Stefan Fuele, the bloc's Ukraine envoy, held talks with President Viktor Yanukovych in Kyiv on Monday in a bid to prevent an upcoming EU-Ukraine summit from failing.

"I underlined that the EU is concerned about lack of progress on a number of critical reforms in Ukraine, including those in the constitutional and judicial spheres, and we have had substantial discussions on these," Fuele said in a statement after meeting with Yanukovych for over three hours.

"I also reiterated our serious concern over recent cases of selective justice in Ukraine, including the cases of Yulia Tymoshenko and others," he added.

Fuele also met with Tymoshenko at the jail where she is being held.

"I informed her about the EU's concerns regarding this process and assured her that we would continue to follow closely her appeal and would insist upon the need for her to benefit from of all her rights to defend herself in a fair process," Fuele said.

Political 'lynching'

Tymoshenko has called her imprisonment a "lynching" by Yanukovych, an old political foe who only narrowly beat her in a run-off for the presidency in February 2010 after a bitter contest.

The Tymoshenko affair has thrown into jeopardy next week's summit in Kyiv, which was meant to lay the ground for a new strategic relationship between the ex-Soviet republic and the EU.

In Brussels, Kostiantyn Yelisieiev, Ukraine's envoy to the EU, said he did not now expect the bloc to sign key agreements at next week's summit, as had been originally planned.

"For our side there is full-fledged political will to initial at the summit," Yelisieiev told reporters in Brussels.

"Unfortunately, you need two to tango and as I understand, there is no political will on the EU side to initial at the summit because of the position of some member states."

The envoy also gave no indication that there had been any change of heart by Yanukovych or any sign he would intervene to bring about Tymoshenko's release - indeed the authorities have instead been piling up new charges against her.

Personal vendetta

Last Friday, authorities convened a special court in her prison cell and formally "re-arrested" her on a new criminal charge of tax evasion, prompting her lawyer to say that the authorities clearly intended to keep her locked up indefinitely.

The abuse of office charge, for which she was sentenced in October, relates to brokering a gas deal with Russia in 2009 when she was prime minister.

Political insiders say the prosecution of Tymoshenko, a populist whose rhetoric brought tens of thousands out on to the streets in the 2004 Orange Revolution protests, is personally driven by Yanukovych.

Yanukovych was ultimately denied the presidency by the Orange Revolution and insiders say he has never forgiven Tymoshenko for that or for her biting personal attacks during the 2010 presidential campaign.

About 1,000 of her supporters, chanting "Yulia Freedom! Yanukovych to prison!", gathered outside Ukraine's Appeals Court on Tuesday when her appeal against October's verdict opened.

Tymoshenko's defense lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko told journalists outside the court: "All Yanukovych has to do is give the order to change the court's decision and it will be done. The decision [to release her] does not lie with the Appeals Court and you know this."

Author: Gabriel Borrud (Reuters, dpa)
Editor: Martin Kuebler