Ukrainian former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko announced on Thursday that she will 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 hair braid, served twice as prime minister and ran for president in 2010, only to be narrowly beaten by Viktor Yanukovych in a runoff vote.

Yanukovych 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.

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

Reuters