Former Prime Minister and opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko has said the authorities are persecuting officials from her cabinet in order to divert attention away from their own corrupt actions.

Tymoshenko was the first guest on the September 3 edition of the "Shuster Live" talk show, which resumed broadcasting after the summer break.

"These criminal cases have several purposes. Not only to prove that we were corrupt while the present cabinet and president are honest. They also want to intimidate all those who dare to look at the illegally acquired property of the clans and to intimidate all my allies," she said. Tymoshenko added that she tried to protect people close to her, and confirmed that she helped to hide the former head of the State Treasury, Tetyana Slyuz, and former Economics Minister Bohdan Danylyshyn, who has

recently been put on an international wanted list. "(Former) chief treasurer of the country Slyuz is on the run now. I protected her and I will keep protecting her," Tymoshenko said.

She said authorities wanted to have Slyuz arrested "for not paying back 800m hryvnyas to two corporations but spending it on pensions and wages in a country torn apart by the crisis". Speaking about Danylyshyn, Tymoshenko said that "we had to urgently protect him. Basically, we hid him from those who want to have their revenge on everybody." All those arrested or wanted officials fulfilled her instructions, Tymoshenko said. She did not rule out that the former first deputy prime minister and now first deputy head of Tymoshenko's Fatherland party, Oleksandr Turchynov, would be the next to be arrested. "I know that he will go without any fear," she added. "I am also ready to go, if need be. I will not hide or run abroad," she stressed, adding that she had no fear left.

The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc is calling on people to protest against the authorities outside Parliament on September 7, the day on which the seventh convocation of Parliament convenes after the summer recess.