KIEV, January 8 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine’s jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Tuesday declared ‘civil disobedience’ at the prison hospital where she is undergoing treatment.

“Today I am starting my personal civil disobedience action,” she said in an open letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a copy of which was posted on the website of her Batkyvshchyna party.

Tymoshenko said she will no longer communicate with the prosecutors and investigators, will refuse to go to court of her own free will, is ready to physically resist any attempts to forcibly deliver her to the courtroom, and will not allow herself to be searched.

Tymoshenko is serving a seven-year sentence for abuse of office over a 2009 gas deal with Russia. Critics view the sentence as politically motivated.

The Batkyvshchyna party came second in the country's October 2012 parliamentary elections, losing to the ruling Party of Regions.

International election observers criticized what they called the abuse of administrative resources, a lack of media freedom during the campaign season, and the opaque campaign finances of the Party of Regions.