KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — A Ukrainian skier has withdrawn from the Olympics to protest the deaths of anti-government protesters in her country.

“I don’t want to participate when in my country people die,” Bogdana Matsotska told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The 24-year-old skier is refusing to ski Friday in the slalom, which is her third and best event at the Sochi Olympics.

Matsotska wants to leave the Olympics immediately to join protesters in the camp known as Maidan in Kiev’s Independence Square, but said she has been unable to book a flight home.

“I am in Maidan but just with my soul,” she said.

The two-time Olympian explained her frustration with Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych in an interview conducted in English and Russian.

“I think as a minimum he has to be jailed, and for a long time,” Matsotska said. “For all the lives that he took, for all the lives of innocent people that came peacefully to stand for their opinion.