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Ukraine Interim Leader: Presidential Campaign Begins Immediately

<p>“The nomination of candidates can start on Tuesday,” interim President Oleksander Turchinov announces.</p>
Image: Ukrainian opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko
Ukrainian opposition leader and head of the UDAR (Punch) party Vitaly Klitschko holds a loud-speaker as he addresses anti-government protesters outside the Ukrainian Parliament building in Kiev February 22, 2014. The heads of four Ukrainian security bodies, including the police's Berkut anti-riot units, appeared in parliament on Saturday and declared they would not take part in any conflict with the people. VASILY FEDOSENKO / Reuters

Ukraine's presidential election campaign will start this week, just days after President Viktor Yanukovych was forced from power and fled the capital, the country's interim leader said Monday.

“The nomination of candidates can start on Tuesday,” Oleksander Turchinov, who was named interim president by the country's parliament on Saturday, told Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

Yanukovych has been on-the-run since Saturday after bowed to protesters' demands and agreed to early elections.

Three months of protests against Yanukovych, who had turned away from closer ties with Europe and towards Vladimir Putin's Russia, burst into deadly violence last week. More than 80 people were killed in battles with police.