KIEV, Jan. 17 – Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of the largest opposition party in Ukraine, on Monday accused law enforcement agencies of politically motivated pressure aimed at preventing a massive opposition rally later this week.

Tymoshenko, who plans to lead the rally on January 22, said the Prosecutor General’s Office had summoned her for questioning on Tuesday and Wednesday, disrupting her travel plans.

“Their task is not to let me do a very important business: organizing the people and our nation for a strong resistance,” Tymoshenko said. “That’s why they are simply hindering my political activity.”

Interior Minister Anatoliy Mohyliov on Friday warned or possible “bloodshed” at the upcoming opposition rally that is due in Kiev on January 22.

Mohyliov cited his unidentified sources for the information, and said that police has been prepared to use force to prevent the worst-case scenario.

Mohyliov, however, suggested the “bloodshed” has been prepared by those who want to discredit President Viktor Yanukovych and his government, a charge that opposition groups have vehemently denied.

The developments indicate that tensions have been growing between the ruling party and the opposition groups, which have been increasingly seeking to start street protests against the policy of Yanukovych.

Tymoshenko, seen by many observers as the strongest competitor to Yanukovych, is under investigation for alleged misspending of funds obtained from selling carbon dioxide emission allowances in 2009 towards paying out pensions and social security benefits.

The interrogations, which take up to 11 hours a day, intensified after Tymoshenko had suggested she would seek to visit Brussels for discussions with European leaders over deteriorating level of democracy in Ukraine under Yanukovych.

Overall, there are 18 separate investigations underway against opposition figures in Ukraine, according to Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka.

Yuriy Lutsenko, a former interior minister and an ally of Tymoshenko, was arrested last month and will be held behind bars for two months until his case is submitted to court.

But Bohdan Danylyshyn, a former economy minister, was granted an asylum by the Czech Republic last week in a move that has been effectively shielding him from any persecution in Ukraine.

Tymoshenko was charged with abuse of power last month, but she said the prosecutor office has resumed investigation again on Monday because the case does not hold water.

“The investigation is now at the dead-end,” Tymoshenko said. “There is no crime, there is no subject of the crime. There is nothing to go to court with.”

“These authorities, this president - who sees me as his main rival and rightly so – will be fighting me not by the strength of their argument, but with the strength of police and law enforcement that they had turned into a repressive organs.”

“This all will be over only when this president is gone,” Tymoshenko said. (tl/ez)