KIEV: Yulia Tymoshenko, one of Ukraine’s most polarizing political figures, announced Thursday that she will run in the country’s May 25 presidential election.

A former prime minister who was released from prison last month following the overthrow of her longtime rival, President Viktor Yanukovych, Tymoshenko said she was running to protect the unity of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s presidential election is taking place against the backdrop of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Ukraine’s dire economic straits and rumblings of discontent in the country’s mainly Russian-speaking eastern provinces.

“I will be the candidate of Ukrainian unity,” the 53-year-old Tymoshenko said. “The west and center of Ukraine has always voted for me, but I was born in the east, in Dnipropetrovsk.”

This will be her second attempt to secure the presidency — she narrowly lost to Yanukovych in 2010.

On Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he sees no way for Russia to return to G8 unless President Vladimir Putin changes course.

“The difficulty is that notwithstanding all of our efforts to make Mr. Putin a partner, he has no desire to be partner, he has desire to be a rival,” Harper said at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

“Personally — and I only speak for Canada here — I don’t see any way of return of Mr. Putin to the table unless Russia fundamentally changes its course.”

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund pledged up to $18 billion in loans Thursday to prop up Ukraine’s teetering economy, and the prime minister warned that everyone is going to feel some pain from the necessary financial reforms ahead.

Situation in the region is quite tensed as nearly 100,000 Russian forces have massed on Ukraine’s border. “Almost 100,000 soldiers are stationed on the borders of Ukraine and in the direction ....of Kharkiv, Donetsk, “ a top Ukrainian official said on Thursday.