MILLIONS of people will be urged to take to the streets in Ukraine if officials try to rig presidential elections starting today that will decide whether the country turns its back on Russia and embraces western Europe.

Yulia Timoshenko, who is Ukraine’s wealthiest woman and a prominent opposition leader, said she feared that the government would commit widespread fraud to swing the vote in its favour.

If that happened, she warned, opposition supporters would march on Kiev, the capital, in a repeat of last year’s demonstrations in Georgia, another former Soviet republic, where Eduard Shevardnadze, the president, was forced from power.

“What happened in Georgia is nothing compared with what could take place in Ukraine if the polls are rigged,” said Timoshenko. “We won’t sit back and let the government rob us of victory. With our support, millions will march on the capital and demonstrate for however long it takes.”

Timoshenko’s threat has raised fears of bloody clashes with the police in a campaign already marred by intimidation.

A crowd of several thousand gathered in front of a statue of Lenin last week in Zolotonosha, a small town 100 miles from Kiev. Timoshenko, 44, was cheered by peasant women with gold teeth and wearing headscarves as she took to the stage in a black designer coat and pearl earrings and passionately denounced the price of salo, Ukrainian pork fat.

The charismatic Timoshenko, a former energy minister who made a fortune in the gas industry and is being touted as a future prime minister, is campaigning for Viktor Yushchenko, the main liberal opposition candidate. Her message is uncompromising. Describing the party’s rivals as “bandits” she told her supporters to stake out polling stations tonight to prevent ballot rigging.

Yushchenko is standing against Viktor Yanukovich, the prime minister and heir apparent to Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine’s authoritarian president, who is required by the constitution to step down after serving two terms.

The election is regarded as the most important since independence in 1991. If Yushchenko wins, he promises to strengthen ties with the European Union. If Yanukovich becomes president, he will push the country closer to Moscow.

The poll is reminiscent of the cold war, when Russia and the United States meddled in elections to expand their spheres of influence.

President Vladimir Putin has put his weight behind Yanukovich, who has promised to maintain state control of the economy, make Russian an official language and give millions of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine dual citizenship.

An army of Kremlin spin doctors has descended on Kiev and Putin himself travelled there last week and openly endorsed Yanukovich in a televised question-and-answer session with Ukrainian voters.

Once the bread basket of the Soviet Union, Ukraine, with its population of 48m, is of great strategic importance to Moscow, which sees it as a buffer against Nato expansion. Russia’s southern fleet is based in the port of Sebastopol and Ukrainian pipelines are used to export Russian gas and oil.

Yushchenko, whose wife is an American of Ukrainian descent, is backed by the West because of his liberal views. Supporters have received financial backing and spin doctors’ advice from America.

Polls put the two main candidates neck and neck at the head of a race with 24 candidates in all, making a run-off next month almost certain.

The campaign to date has been arguably the region’s dirtiest since the fall of communism. Yushchenko was forced to halt campaigning at one point after falling ill and claiming that he had been poisoned. He has become so disfigured that he wears heavy make-up.

State-controlled television, which did not show Yushchenko before, now broadcasts pictures portraying him in an unfavourable light. Yanukovich has denied any responsibility for his rival’s illness.

This weekend there were rumours that Kuchma would cancel the second round of voting and introduce a state of emergency to stay in power. Yanukovich, however, pledged to hold free and fair elections but warned opposition protesters that they would be prosecuted if they caused trouble.

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