Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich returned to work today after vowing to go to court to challenge his defeat to a West-leaning rival in the re-run of a bruising presidential election.
Mr Yanukovich's move was almost certainly a tactic intended to exploit the sole power base left to him - given that outgoing President Leonid Kuchma has all but abandoned him since the original fraudulent runoff last month.
Liberal challenger Mr Viktor Yushchenko has an unassailable lead after Sunday's contest - the third time Ukrainians have voted in less than two months - proclaiming the ex-Soviet state finally free 14 years after independence from Soviet rule.
Setting down his broad objectives in a newspaper article, Mr Yushchenko said the election - and the mass protests in his favor preceding it - had put an end to its post-Soviet era. He pledged to reach out to all parts of the country of 47 million.
Both men are still waiting for the formal result to be announced by the Central Election Commission. With 99.9 percent of votes counted, Mr Yushchenko had 52.01 per cent to Mr Yanukovich's 44.18 pe rcent.
The prime minister's press secretary, Mr Oleskander Tarnavsky, said Mr Yanukovich had ended the "holiday" he had taken after last month's runoff - won by Mr Yanukovich but later struck down by the Supreme Court.
After the court ruling, parliament dismissed the prime minister, but Mr Kuchma refused to sign an enabling decree, leaving Mr Yanukovich in office.
Mr Yanukovich, backed by Mr Kuchma and by big neighbor Russia in the earlier poll, refused to concede defeat in Sunday's contest.
He vowed to submit large numbers of irregularities to the Supreme Court, saying only a "blind man" could have failed to note them. In contrast, Western observers praised the poll as a vast improvement.
"I will never recognize this defeat because there were violations of the constitution and of human rights in our country," Mr Yanukovich told a news conference yesterday evening.