Yevhenia Tymoshenko: 'Don't give Yanukovych's dictatorship a chance'

"We're thankful that European leaders support a Ukrainian nation who is standing up to fight," Yevhenia Tymoshenko told DW. "This protest is not just a fight for a European future for Ukraine, it is a personal fight for each person for their destiny, against the regime that took their businesses, took their lives and took their European future from them," she said.

Tymoshenko criticized the police brutality against Ukrainian demonstrators and pointed out that the violence that has been used by the police force was "organized by presidential people. They beat people up, the young people who were just guarding their posts at the peaceful protests."

She called on Western nations to keep up pressure on the Ukrainian government for her mother's release. "I want to appeal to the democratic communities of the world on behalf of those who are fighting for Ukrainian democracy now, and also ask them to continue the fight for my mother's freedom and not let her be a political hostage of the regime," Tymoshenko said.

She recently visited her mother in prison, where she is continuing her hunger strike against Yanukovych's regime. "(My mother) called for European leaders and the democratic world not to give Yanukovych's dictatorship a chance to develop. The beatings of the young people at the square is only the beginning," Yevhenia Tymoshenko told DW.

Tymoshenko has led a worldwide campaign for her mother's release and promoted closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union for years. As the major rival of Yanukovych, Ukraine's former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years' jail for abuse of office after a controversial trial in 2011.