Oleksandr Tymoshenko had made his request for asylum months before. He said he did it to prevent the government in Kiev from putting even more pressure on his wife by persecuting her relatives. The government in Prague already granted asylum to Yulia Tymoshenko's former minister of economics, Bogdan Danylyshyn, in 2011. Meanwhile, Yulia Tymoshenko is said to be suffering from serious health problems and her daughter Eugenia says she fears for her mother's life.