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Ukraine's Tymoshenko Says She Will Run For President Again

Ukrainian former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko announced that she will run for president again in upcoming elections.
Image: UKRAINE-RUSSIA-POLITICS-CRISIS-TYMOSHENKO-FILES
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko seen during a press-conference in Kiev on Feb.4, 2012. She announced Thursday that she run in Ukraine's presidential election set for May 25. SERGEI SUPINSKY / AFP - Getty Images

KIEV – Ukrainian former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, released from jail last month after her arch-foe Viktor Yanukovich fled from power, announced on Thursday she would run again for president in an election on May 25.

"I plan to run for election as president," she told reporters.

Tymoshenko, 53, a powerful speaker known in her heyday for a trademark peasant hair-braid, served twice as prime minister and ran for president in 2010, only to be narrowly beaten in a run-off vote by Yanukovich.

Yanukovich subsequently launched a campaign against Tymoshenko and her allies and she was jailed in 2011 for abuse of office linked to a gas deal she brokered with Russia in 2009.

Image: UKRAINE-RUSSIA-POLITICS-CRISIS-TYMOSHENKO-FILES
Ukrainian opposition icon and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko delivers a speech on Kiev's Independence Square shortly after her release from prison on Feb. 22, 2014.LOUISA GOULIAMAKI / AFP - Getty Images

She served two years of a seven-year term, mainly under prison guard in a hospital in Kharkiv, before being released when Yanukovich fled on February 20 and was subsequently ousted by parliament.

Reuters