Ukraine's jailed former prime minister and opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko on Monday came out in support of the protesters clashing with police in Kiev, saying she would be with them if she could.
"Protect Ukraine and do not fear anything. Ukraine has no defense other than you. You are heroes," she said in a statement read by her spokeswoman to Agence France Presse. Tymoshenko said if she were free, "I would be with you... Freedom is worth such a fight."

The White House called for an immediate end Sunday to clashes between security forces and protesters in Ukraine, warning of possible sanctions.
"We are deeply concerned by the violence taking place today on the streets of Kiev and urge all sides to immediately de-escalate the situation," National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement.

Clashes between police and protesters raged in the center of the Ukrainian capital Kiev on Sunday after 200,000 defied new restrictions on protests to turn out for a new rally against President Viktor Yanukovych.
Several hours of the bloody clashes left dozens injured and further raised stakes in the almost two month-standoff between the opposition and Yanukovych which has seen protesters seize control of the center of Kiev.

Pro-EU Ukrainians were reinforcing barricades in Kiev on Saturday ahead of a new mass rally, defying President Viktor Yanukovych after he approved strict curbs on protests that caused an outcry in the West.
In a fresh sign of mounting tensions, the president dismissed his chief of staff and will skip this week's economic forum in Davos.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Friday signed into law hugely controversial legislation which aims to curb protests, despite an outcry from the opposition and the West.
Yanukovych also dismissed his chief of staff, Sergiy Lyovochkin, the president's office said.

New laws "rammed through" the Ukraine parliament to curb protests are "anti-democratic," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday, adding that the legislation also violated EU norms.
"We believe deeply that the people of Ukraine want to affiliate, they want to be associated with Europe," Kerry said, noting the new laws "are anti-democratic, they're wrong, they are taking from the people of Ukraine, their choice and their opportunity for the future."

EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton said Friday she was "deeply concerned" after Ukraine passed laws to curb the right to protest, a move the opposition called a "power grab."
"I am deeply concerned by the events in Kiev," Ashton said.

Ukraine's pro-government lawmakers on Thursday pushed through parliament tough legislation in an apparent bid to suppress protests against President Viktor Yanukovych.
The opposition, which has been spearheading nearly two months of rallies against Yanukovych over his decision to ditch a key pact with the EU, branded the vote "a power grab."

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said on Thursday that he was wary about "provocations" from Moscow but confident the ex-Soviet state could withstand any fresh pressure from the Kremlin.
Georgia, which fought a brief 2008 war with Russia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia, initialled a deal for closer ties with the European Union in November and officials in Tbilisi say they hope to ratify the pact later this year.

U.S. journalist David Satter, a longtime critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Monday he had been banned from the country in one of the first such expulsions since the Cold War.
Satter, a former Financial Times and Wall Street Journal correspondent who published three books on Russia and the former Soviet Union, had been living and working in the country since September 2013 as an adviser for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
