Yanukovych has long crossed the boundaries of the law. But the fact that, today, he gave orders to open sniper fire to destroy peaceful, unarmed, defenseless people – this verges on the most sadistic brutality imaginable.
It’s impossible to watch without tears or despair how honest boys, who stood up for the defense of Ukraine, hide from sniper bullets behind their makeshift wooden shields. These shields cannot protect them. They fall, hit by the snipers, and die before the eyes of the entire world. They’re being killed by a person who considers himself their president. He is killing them in cold blood and calmly in Freedom Square, in the center of a European capital.
For this, there is not and there can never be forgiveness. I demand that the opposition never again sit down at the negotiating table with Yanukovych. Every one of us who breaks this taboo will be complicit with Yanukovych in the killing of innocent people.
From this moment, the sole demand of the country, our society, the opposition, the international community, and every moral person may only be to immediately remove Yanukovych from the post of the President of Ukraine and hold him criminally responsible for organizing mass killings of peaceful citizens.
I ask the leaders of the democratic world to immediately find a way to bring Yanukovych before the International Criminal Court to urgently isolate him from peaceful people as we would a dangerous beast!
Glory to all of who died for Ukraine!
Glory to all who defend Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
Not one step back. Day by day, the dictator falls.
Yulia Tymoshenko
Kachanivska colony
Kharkiv, Ukraine
20 February 2014
Translated by Lesia Alexandra Stangret
