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Opposition leader Timoshenko says she gets back to work

Former prime minister spoke at the Independence Square in Kiev

© EPA/ANDREW KRAVCHENKO

KIEV, February 23, (ITAR-TASS) - The leader of the opposition Batkivshchina Party, Yulia Timoshenko, released from jail earlier on Saturday, said that she intended to get back to work shortly.

“I am now getting back to work. I will devote every minute to your feeling happy in your homeland,” former prime minister Timoshenko said on Kiev’s central Independence Square.

Read also

Timoshenko says she runs for presidency

Earlier, before leaving Kharkov, where she had been undergoing medical treatment, she told reporters about her plans to run for president in the early presidential elections scheduled for May 25. In reply to the query about her future plans, Timoshenko said “I will run for president”.

Addressing protesters on Independence Square, the former prime minister pledged that she would be guarantor of all their demands being met. “All of them,” she added.

Timoshenko also spoke in favor of territorial integrity of Ukraine. “Breakup of the country must not be allowed in any case. Ukraine must not disintegrate into separate provinces,” said Timoshenko, who was in 2011 sentenced to seven years in jail for abuse of power during the signing of gas deals with Russia’s Gazprom.

She also pledged that Ukraine would see new politicians. “I pledge to ensure that nobody will betray you. I pledge to ensure that you will know what is going on behind the scenes. As one of the politicians who not just repents, I want to ask for your forgiveness, I want to apologize to you on behalf of all politicians,” Timoshenko said. “I want to say on behalf of all, that politicians have been unworthy of you so far. I want you to see new politicians, and other officials,” she added.

Timoshenko also came out in favor of seeing President Vikitor Yanukovich “appear before the popular court”, and urged protesters not to disperse until they “implement all that was planned”.

Timoshenko was addressing protesters sitting in a wheelchair.

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