A top aide to Viktor Yushchenko, confident that the Western-leaning reformer will be inaugurated as Ukrainian president within days, said today he will begin a push to bring the country into the European Union.

Ukraine’s Supreme Court ruled today that presidential election results can be published before it completes hearing an appeal by the losing candidate, paving the way for the inauguration of Western-leaning reformer Viktor Yushchenko.

Anna Melnichuk, Kiev

Viktor Yushchenko won the Ukrainian presidency, according to final preliminary results released today from the Central Election Commission.

VIKTOR Yushchenko's triumphant announcement of a new democratic era in Ukraine was overshadowed last night by the mysterious death of a cabinet minister and the refusal of his opponent to accept the result.

Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko celebrated his apparently decisive triumph in Ukraine’s protracted presidential contest today, thanking the protesters who spent weeks camped out in the capital’s frigid streets for securing his electoral victory and the nation’s freedom.

Ukraine’s top security service denied today that it had any involvement with the poisoning of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko (pictured), the leading candidate in Boxing Day’s rerun for the presidency.

Ukraine’s two rivals for the presidency clashed in a heated televised debate today before a re-run of their disputed election, with opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko (pictured) accusing his rival of vote stealing.

A top security agency official today denied any involvement in the poisoning of Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko.

MPs in Ukraine’s parliament reopened their investigation today into opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko’s mysterious illness after doctors in Austria determined he had been poisoned by dioxin.

Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has called for a serious investigation to determine how he was poisoned by dioxin, but urged it be conducted after the December 26 presidential runoff election to avoid influencing the results.

Ukraine’s opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko praised thousands of cheering supporters in Kiev today for their weeks of protest against electoral fraud, declaring that a new nation was forged from the resistance.

THE rivals for the Ukrainian presidency sat down and talked last night with European and Russian envoys and the man they both hope to succeed.

The rivals at war over the Ukrainian presidency sat down and talked tonight with the man they both hope to succeed and European and Russian envoys.