Ukraine's embattled opposition leader, Yulia Tymoshenko, has said she is "tabooed" from the country's state-controlled TV, as critical media faces growing pressure from President Viktor Yanukovych.
"There is a taboo on me on all of the central TV channels," Tymoshenko, former prime minister, said in an interview with the more independent Fifth Channel on Tuesday.
In December, prosecutors accused Tymoshenko, who lost premiership following a no-confidence vote in March, of misusing $425 million of public funds while in office. She rejects the accusation, saying she is being targeted for standing up to Yanukovych.
Yanukovych, Tymoshenko's long-term rival, narrowly defeated her in the February 2010 presidential election, six years after the charismatic orator stripped him of victory in the rigged 2004 election.
Critics warn that Yanukovych has accumulated too much power and is trying to create the same kind of hardline autocracy as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
KIEV, January 4 (RIA Novosti)
