Yulia Tymoshenko

He might be ready to let her out, but he cannot afford to let her back.

As deadlines near on the future of Ukraine’s ties with Europe, President Viktor Yanukovich is under pressure to put aside personal animosity and let his jailed opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko, go to Germany for medical treatment.

Softening Yanukovich’s hardline stance on his arch-rival is seen as crucial if Ukraine is to secure the signing of landmark agreements, including a free trade deal, with the European Union at a November summit.

But, diplomats say, the 63-year-old former truck driver knows that allowing her to rejoin the political fray would endanger his run at a second term in 2015, given her formidable populist appeal and her organisational skills.

“The proposal is for Tymoshenko to go for treatment in Germany on condition that she does not take part in Ukraine’s political life,” wrote Dmitry Korotkov in Segodnya newspaper.

Others were more blunt. “He wants her politically dead,” one diplomat told Reuters.

The bile between Yanukovich and the sharp-tongued Tymoshenko has poisoned Ukrainian politics for years.

The former prime minister emerged as his nemesis in the 2004 “Orange Revolution” when she used her skills as an orator to lead street protests against vote-rigging, dooming his first bid for power.

Her defeat by Yanukovich in a bitterly fought run-off vote in February 2010, in which she heaped insults on him, led her to a prison cell, say her supporters.

Since late 2011 she has been serving a seven-year jail term after being convicted of abuse of office, most of it under guard in a hospital where she is being treated for back trouble.

She denies any wrongdoing and says her prosecution is political revenge – a view shared by the European Union which has denounced “selective justice” in the former Soviet republic.

From her hospital room, she continues to berate Yanukovich, accusing him of plundering the country’s resources to enrich himself, his family and his côterie of favourites.

At a March news conference Yanukovich declined to give a direct answer about his wealth or that of his elder son Olexander, a wealthy businessman, but routinely dismisses such charges as being politically motivated.

Her critics lay similar charges at her door, pointing to the personal fortune she amassed in the 1990s as a businesswoman operating in a murky gas industry – activity which earned her the nickname of ‘the gas princess’.

For some months now, EU heavyweight Germany has been formulating a plan to provide Yanukovich with a way out – quietly pushing a “humanitarian” solution in which Tymoshenko could be received for medical treatment in a Berlin hospital.

This formula – so the logic goes – would allow Yanukovich to show himself in a good light and might ensure signing of planned agreements on political association and free trade with the European Union at the Vilnius, Lithuania, summit.