KIEV (REUTERS) - Ukrainian former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, released from jail last month after her arch-foe Viktor Yanukovich fled from power, announced on Thursday that she would run again for president in an election on May 25.

"I plan to run for election as president," she told reporters.

Ms Tymoshenko, 53, a powerful speaker known in her heyday for a trademark peasant hair-braid, served twice as prime minister and ran for president in 2010, only to be narrowly beaten in a run-off vote by Mr Yanukovich.

The latter subsequently launched a campaign against Ms 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 Mr Yanukovich fled on February 20 and was subsequently ousted by parliament.