AP: Tymoshenko: Ukraine's polarizing 'Gas Princess'
As protests roiled Ukraine's capital and exploded into violence, Yulia Tymoshenko's face, topped by her trademark diadem of blonde peasant braids, overlooked the street mayhem from posters — an oddly ghostly presence for a woman who made her name by being in the thick of opposition action.
The posters, on display near the stage of the protesters' main camp and on the nearby city Christmas tree, were the only way Tymoshenko could be there. She's been imprisoned for more than two years serving a sentence widely regarded as an act of vengeance by her arch-foe, President Viktor Yanukovych.
Now Tymoshenko may be just days from a return. Hours after Yanukovych and protest leaders signed a wide-ranging agreement Friday to resolve the country's political crisis, the parliament that once was in Yanukovych's pocket approved a measure decriminalizing the charge used to convict Tymoshenko, paving the way for her release.
Freeing her would bring back one of the most polarizing figures in Ukraine's overheated political scene. She is variously admired as an icon of democracy and detested as a self-promoting manipulator with a shady past.