Tymoshenko: ‘Heroes will never die’

Ukraine's parliament has voted to push President Viktor Yanukovych out of office hours after he fled the capital and denounced events in the country as "a coup d'etat" in a television interview. The legislature also voted to release Yanukovych's jailed arch-rival, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Reuters reports that the 53-year-old ex-premier, who had been held in a hospital under prison guard since 2011 for abuse of office over a gas deal with Russia — a charge widely viewed by her supporters as politically motivated — was freed shortly after the vote.Speaking after her release, Tymoshenko said the ouster of Yanukovych amounted to the fall of a dictator. "Our homeland will from today on be able to see the sun and sky as a dictatorship has ended," she told reporters. "Each drop of blood was not spilled in vain," she said referring to the deaths of some 77 protesters in violence in recent days. Tyomoshenko, who later addressed a crowd in Kiev, called the opposition supporters gathered to greet her, called them "heroes." "You are the best thing in Ukraine!" she said.