Yulia Tymoshenko, running for president in Ukraine’s election next month, has told euronews in an exclusive interview that her country needs Western support to bring Russia into line.

The former prime minister, freed from jail two months ago as the previous government fell, trails entrepreneur Petro Poroshenko in the polls.

She rejected her rival’s idea for bilateral talks with Moscow.

“If you start face to face negotiations between Ukraine and Russia it means Ukraine will receive only an offer to capitulate. That’s why today I invited Petro Poroshenko to revoke his proposal and to return to the existing format, in other words involving the US, the EU, Ukraine and Russia. I think that only the biggest countries of the world and the European Union are able to put Russia in its place.”

“Do you think that this kind of de facto war, as you say, will become a real war and at the end of the day the Russian troops will cross the border?” euronews Kyiv correspondent Sergio Cantone asked her.

“The question whether Putin will use heavy weapons and real military intrusion depends on how strong world leaders will be, how strong the US will be, how strong the EU will be. If they can stop this aggression and Putin feels that their power is stronger than his, he will stop. He will go as far as the US and the European Union let him go,” Tymoshenko replied.