With the stakes now as high as they will ever be, and the future of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement in the balance, Ukraine’s top officials are dredging up old excuses for refusing to consider a pardon

David Kramer from Freedom House also warns that if Yanukovych thinks the Association Agreement can be signed without resolving the situation with Yulia Tymoshenko, he’s mistaken

If the latest bill on resolving "the Tymoshenko issue" is adopted, then Tymoshenko will not have been pardoned but simply removed from the scene. It sounds unpleasantly like the solutions found for Solzhenitsyn and other prominent figures back in Soviet times.

The European Parliament Mission has been extended into November, essentially because the key conditions have not been met. Yulia Tymoshenko remains imprisoned almost two years after President Yanukovych first assured western countries that the “situation” would be resolved.

172 MPs including the heads of the three opposition parliamentary factions have called on President Yanukovych to agree to the request put last Friday by the Cox and Kwaśniewski Delegation

Calls are coming from EU officials and European leaders for the release of Yulia Tymoshenko. While the removal of Renat Kuzmin, notorious for his active role in the prosecutions of Tymoshenko, Lutsenko and others, has been welcomed, time is short and resolution of the real issue needed.

A survey carried out by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation of a number of analysts, NGO heads, etc found that there was minimal confidence that the so-called "Tymoshenko question" would be resolved by the summit

While the Cabinet of Ministers approval on Wednesday of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement means a move away from the Customs Union, a former German Ambassador warns that none of Kyiv’s promised reforms are credible without the release of Tymoshenko

An official report claims that Speaker Rybak did not assure an EU meeting in Vilnius that all EU requirements would be fulfilled in October, including Tymoshenko’s release and treatment abroad

According to Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle the Tymoshenko case has particular symbolic significance for Germany. Its resolution is one of the conditions for signing the Association Agreement “eliminating the impression of selective Ukrainian justice”.

As reported, the 30 April ECHR Judgment found three violations of Article 5 over Tymoshenko’s arrest and detention and of Article 18 since the grounds for her detention were other than those permitted by law

The Kyiv Regional Court of Appeal has effectively upheld the refusal to bring proceedings against those responsible for the unlawful arrest and detention of former Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko

Not unexpectedly, a Milan court has refused to extradite Viktor Romanyuk, parliamentary candidate in the problematic single-mandate electoral district No. 94. The criminal charges were brought after an election which Romanyuk was winning until a court invalidated 30 thousand votes on application from his Party of the Regions rival

In spite of the European Court of Human Rights judgment from July 2012 a Kyiv court has rejected the application from former Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko to reinstate the criminal investigation against officials who ordered his detention

While the removal of direct reference to Tymoshenko and Lutsenko in the PACE resolution on broad abuse-of-office laws could be justified by the need for a general stand, OSCE withdrawal of a draft resolution on human rights in Russia cannot.

Five US Senators have co-authored a resolution calling for the release of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko following the recent European Court of Human Rights judgment.

Speculation has been rife since only hours after inews of the suspension of the criminal investigation into the death of MP and businessman Shcherban which the Prosecutor General has himself claimed Yulia Tymoshenko is implicated in, the criminal investigation was reinstated

A psychoanalyst might assume that top Ukrainian officials were in a state of denial listening to their comments on the European Court of Human Rights judgment on Tymoshenko’s arrest, With the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement on the line, another diagnosis can be suggested for the distortions being heard

There have been clear messages from top-ranking EU representatives, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe [PACE], the US and others in the light of the European Court of Human Rights judgment on Yulia Tymoshenko’s arrest and pre-trial detention.

According to a s Razumkov Centre survey, an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians (69.4%) consider that President Yanukovych exerts personal influence on the courts and the activities of the law enforcement bodies.in the cases of Yulia Tymoshenko and Yury Lutsenko.