Ukraine's presidential candidates hold televised debate

Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko held a heated debate on TV Monday, six days before they contest the presidency in the decisive Dec. 26 re-run of the presidential election run-off.

During the 100-minute debate broadcast by Ukraine's UT-1 national channel, the two rivals, Moscow-backed Yanukovych and West-backed Yushchenko traded accusations each other while making promises to voters in case of being elected the country's president.

Yushchenko blamed Yanukovych and his team of stealing more than 3 million votes in the Dec. 21 run-off.

"The results of Nov. 21 election were stolen by my opponent and his team," Yushchenko said.

"They tried to steal our future," Yushchenko stressed, speaking in Ukrainian.

Yanukovych, on his part, said he fully agreed with those who went to the Independence Square with indignation against the authorities' actions.

He suggested to Yushchenko that the two men should unite efforts "to send this old regime into retirement."

Yanukovych, backed by outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and Russia, speaking in Russian, urged to avoid a situation when one of them would be elected a "defective president" of only one part of Ukraine.

Yushchenko, stressing that it is impossible to divide Ukraine's territory, said he is confident that the Ukrainian people can elect the head of state on their own without any instructions from abroad.

"It is high time to go over to the situation when the Ukrainian president would not be elected in Moscow," Yushchenko said, adding that this problem also "equivalently" suits to Brussels, Warsaw and Washington.

Yushchenko definitely denied statement that his election campaigning was financed by the United States.

"I must openly say: my hands are clean. I never stole anything and never took anything that did not belong to me," said the West-leaning opposition leader who was poisoned by the toxic chemical dioxin.

Yanukovych urged both rival sides to refrain from sending people to streets while Yushchenko called for mutual understanding between the two camps after the rematch.

The bitter campaign has split the country between the eastern, Russian-speaking industrial heartland that backs Yanukovych and other regions backing the Western-leaning reformist Yushchenko.

Political experts said the debate was less important in terms of who won or lost than for the fact that it took place at all.

It was not so much important to win or lose, but it was important to appear together on the televisions screen, said Kost Bondarenko, a political expert and former advisor to Yanukovich.

He said the debate provided reassurance that there will be no more confrontations and that the two candidates both favor dialogues and a united Ukraine.

In Hamburg, Germany, Russian President Vladimir Putin, on a two-day official visit to the country, will also discuss Ukraine's election re-run with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.