Yulia Tymoshenko. From behind bars

Yulia Tymoshenko, for "Ukrainska Pravda"

It’s 5 am. I have finally gathered my thoughts and found the strength to write...

I’m sitting under the window of my cell on a metal stool, covered with an old newspaper with the headline “Yulia will be convicted but not sent to prison.” The stool was been covered in the newspaper long before my arrest, but I didn’t want to change anything – let everything here take its course.

The cell is approximately 15 square metes. To the left, sorry for my language, is the “piss can”, and to the right my two neighbors are sleeping peacefully. They’re nice, intelligent women – one is from Kyiv and the other from Lviv. They have nothing in common with the local contingent. They're typical representatives of the middle class, who have become symbolic sacrifices of the corrupt regime's pretend fight against corruption.

The walls are covered in a special white solution to control cockroaches, and outside the window someone is quarreling loudly and obscenely.

It’s hard to think that I’m in the historically legendary place for all politically rebellious Ukrainians – this is where they held Cardinal Josyp Slipyj of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, this is where our great scientist Oleksandr Bogomolets was born, whose mother, Sofia Mykolayivna, was once sentenced to ten years of hard labor. Many others who rebelled against the regimes languished in this prison. Be as it may, historical analogies don’t help much in these moments...

The prison is severely overcrowded, creating discomfort for true criminals, and my body lives a life separate from my soul…It walks through dark and smelly basements with clanging iron bars, surrounded by an extraordinary number of armed people, travels in prison vans, and is drenched in sweat in a square meter concrete bag with bars as thick as an arm.

This is only my body being searched and humiliated, while the soul strangely lives its own life – flows and gains new meaning – new love, new faith, new pride and new strength.

LOVE

I have begun to feel a level of love bordering on physical pain. Children’s paintings and their favorite toys that despite prison rules have leaked into my cell. Flowers, purchased with someone’s last kopecks and brought to the trial.

Ordinary, descent people who risk their lives, throw themselves under the wheels of the prison van, sleep in tents on the street in the rain and under muzzles of police guns, break through traffic police barriers and come to rallies and protests, cars that honk in support outside the court, millions of people who pray to God for their children and loved ones and mention my name, and even poems written by prisoners and messages of support on the walls of the prison recreation yards – all this once again affirms my readiness to serve the Ukrainian people, who are so dear to my heart, without any conditions and dividends, how and where I can.

This isn’t a vow or an oath. This is my blood type, my DNA, the meaning of everything I try to do, perhaps with mistakes, but I give my hundred percent.

RESPONSIBILITY

This word has long been discredited. The phrase “a politician’s responsibility” has turned into an oxymoron. A statesman's genuine responsibility before his people can only be crated through proper laws and fear of punishment.

True responsibility is first and foremost a state of mind, inner moral self-censorship. I felt this responsibility in full force when I learned how many people (and most importantly, what kind of people!) asked the court to give me freedom and vouched for me.

The heads of nearly all religious confessions; famous Ukrainians who dedicated their lives to fighting for an independent Ukraine; true Heroes of Ukraine, not those who bought these titles under Kuchma; legendary Soviet-era political prisoners; dissidents of the 1960s; world renowned writers who have already become living legends for patriotic Ukrainian souls; leading diplomats; real journalists who never adapted their voice at anyone's request; famous singers and musicians, athletes, doctors, teachers, miners, metallurgists, farmers.

Some of the people who vouched for me were “against all” in the last presidential elections. Perhaps the mistakes I made as a politician, as a person, were important enough for them to make that decision.

Forgive me my dear people if I didn’t think something through, didn’t finish something, or made a mistake. Double standards have never lived in my soul and they never will. Those who today are trying to punish me know this very well, and that’s why they’re hunting me.

I am grateful to everyone that vouched for me. Every signature and every word of support, your trust and your forgiveness – this is the firm foundation of my MORAL RESPONSIBILITY for the rest of my life before each of you, before every Ukrainian. This feeling is stronger than any formal responsibility written in the laws.

HOPE

The first day in court after my arrest. Every cell of my body is steeped with the smell of prison and after prison even the electric lights in the courtroom look like sun. I find the strength not to show weakness in any view or movement.

In the courtroom I see familiar faces and familiar eyes full of pain and determination. But when I saw Borys Tarasyuk, Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Mykola Katerynchuk, all the guys from People’s Self-Defense, Yuriy Karmazin, representatives of the healthy wing of Our Ukraine, when I found out that Vitali Klitschko interrupted his training and returned to Ukraine to enter the main battle for freedom and democracy, I understood that HERE IS HOPE...

And if my imprisonment is a payment for the unity of the opposition, then...there is a meaning to everything the Lord does, which we may not understand right now.
I thank you, my dear colleagues, that you were by my side today. Right now I know that everything will work out, and not just in this small courtyard on Khreshchatyk 42, but in Ukraine’s strategic perspective.

There is no position that I would not give up for our unity, there are no terms that I would not accept for the opportunity to work together. The unity of the opposition will start of the process of society’s polarization into WE and THEY.

WE – this is everyone who will never accept the materialism, anti-Ukrainian, anti-freedom, injustice and kleptocracy of the regime.

THEY – these are the crazies who believe that in the presidential elections they bought Ukraine as a private business for their family – a Ukraine without people, without freedom, without a soul.

THEY – this is a bad joke by God with "wreaths", "Christmas trees", "Mezhyhiryas" and "the gang".

WE and THEY – this is the only important 'split' in life that should be welcomed, that will give us the chance to mobilize everyone and in a year, send "THEM" back to the past and build a solid wall around the hole that they periodically crawl out of. That is the only way WE will have the opportunity to build a real European country – and build it we will, I have no doubt.

PRIDE

Today I have new pride in my team. Not the one that crawled through all the windows and doors when I worked in the government, but the one that today has clinched its teeth before the muzzles of the police, that is holding the last line of defense against the dictatorship, without administrative resources, without backroom deals, without money, without access to TV, without double standards.

My team, bled by the regime, today is the main political army that is preserving the country's chance. When I see their red sleep-deprived eyes, emotionally drained pale faces, I see how under such conditions they are standing back to back and are keeping order with military discipline, and still manage to strike at the dictatorship in Ukraine, and abroad, I am PROUD of them. They are being criticized, provoked, intimidated, bribed, but they can't be broken morally or politically.

CONFIDENCE

Now I am confident that the western democratic community hasn't left Ukraine to face the threat of dictatorship one-on-one. Claims by the expert community that Ukraine was traded in a major geopolitical agreement isn't true. We ARE NOT ALONE in the face of post-Soviet challenges.

I was pleasantly struck by the powerful, effective and sincere reaction from the world to the persecution of the opposition in Ukraine. They support us, they wish us freedom and justice.

I am grateful to the international democratic community, to all the leaders of the European Union, leaders and politicians of democratic states, my colleagues in the European People’s Party, the Ukrainian diaspora around the world, NGOs and human rights organizations, MEPs, diplomats, and experts for their significant word, their position, for protecting Ukraine. I believe that you will all help Ukraine sign and ratify the Association Agreement with the EU.

Today Ukraine isn't on the verge of international isolation – Yanukovych and his clans are. They can start giving their passport to the kangaroo from Mezhyhirya, because it seems to me that these animals will soon be more likely to be accepted in the world that their masters.

WHY?

Why do I need all these tests? Several people have asked me this. They are advising me to negotiate with the regime, to recognize Viktor Yanukovych as the legitimate president of Ukraine, stand before this court and call their proxy in court "Your Honor".

Others say I should ask Yanukovych for my freedom and right to a normal life, promising to leave politics and not interfere as he rapes our land.

I know in detail how Yanukovych manages my daily punishment and that there are no moral or rational limits to his actions that guarantee his preservation of power.

People that are making such primitive recommendations don't understand that I don't need anything from Yanukovych and his gang. My Freedom and my Faith are with me, far beyond this smelly prison cell.

A close friend of mine often asks me, quoting Schwartz: "Are you a knight or a passerby? If you're a passerby, then go with God. If you're a knight, then go fight..." I answered this question for myself a long time ago.

It’s difficult to see anything through the cloudy window of this prison cell, particularly the "bright future". But I have my Statement of Faith in Ukraine, which has long given me a real goal and real meaning in life, but I’ll write about this in my next letter.

Right now I’m behind bars, but I am with you with all my heart.

Yulia

P.S. Thank you Batkivshchyna Moloda and everyone for the flowers. They didn’t let me keep them, but I know that they were...

(Translation by Tymoshenko.UA)