MOSCOW, April 18. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine’s president Viktor Yanukovich was forced to take shelter in Russia because he faces life threat in Ukraine, Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov told Russia-1 television channel on Friday.

“He [Yanukovich] is free to stay here and he has to stay here because his living in Ukraine is under threat now, so he is under the protection of the Russian state,” Peskov stressed, adding that Yanukovich was forced to leave his country because of threats of physical violence from “those elements who have come to power in an armed coup.