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Journalism of Courage
Ukrainian Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, diagnosed as suffering from dioxin poisoning, prepared to return to Ukraine on Sunday vowing to press on to victory in the re-run of a rigged presidential election.
Ukrainian media said prosecutors had reopened a criminal case after doctors at a Vienna clinic said Yushchenko had been poisoned with dioxin. The case was launched after Yushchenko first underwent treatment in September but was later closed.
Yushchenko, expected to return to Ukraine as early as Sunday to campaign for the Dec. 26 re-run of the presidential poll, told reporters in Vienna he was ‘‘happy to be alive’’.
And he predicted that ‘‘the regime that was in place for 14 years in Ukraine is now living its last days’’. Yushchenko likened Ukraine’s upheaval after the now-discredited run-off presidential election to the fall of the Soviet Union or the Berlin wall. Thousands of Yushchenko supporters brought Kiev to a virtual halt for more than two weeks to demand a new poll.
‘‘We had not seen anything like that for the past 100 years.I believe it would be appropriate to compare this to the fall of the Soviet Union or the fall of the Berlin wall,’’ he said.
