AKIPRESS.COM - Former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko announced yesterday she would run for president in upcoming elections scheduled for May 25, RIA Novosti reported.

“Yes, I plan on running for the presidency of Ukraine,” she said during a press conference in Kiev, adding that she would seek nomination as the candidate of the Batkyvshchina (Fatherland) party during a convention on Saturday.

In 2004, Tymoshenko joined Viktor Yushchenko in leading massive street protests in the Ukrainian capital against the results of a presidential election, in an event that became known as the Orange Revolution.

She served two terms as Prime Minister under President Yushchenko and narrowly lost to Viktor Yanukovych in the 2010 presidential election.

In October 2011, she was sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of office after negotiating an allegedly unfavorable gas deal between Russia and Ukraine in January 2009.

She was released from jail by a decree of Parliament on February 22 and later that day addressed a rally on Kiev's Independence Square.