WORLD> Europe
Ukraine president's plane makes emergency landing
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-10-02 19:15

KIEV  -- A plane carrying Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko made an emergency landing near the capital city of Kiev on Thursday, but nobody was hurt, presidential spokeswoman Irina Vannikova said.

"The president's plane made an emergency landing at the Borispol airport due to technical problems," Vannikova said.

The president then changed to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's plane to continue his visit to Lviv in western Ukraine.

According to Vannikova, the president's visit would be shortened.

Almost simultaneously, the office of Tymoshenko, who has been at loggerheads with Yushchenko, said her scheduled flight to Moscow was delayed due to the emergency.

"The government delegation was deprived of its plane in a bid to thwart the negotiations" with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said Marina Soroka, spokeswoman for Tymoshenko.

Tymoshenko later left for Moscow aboard a chartered plane. The prime minister's press service said that Tymoshenko flew "by a small plane".

Yushchenko's party, which had formed a government with the Tymoshenko bloc, quit the coalition in early September after Tymoshenko's bloc sided with the pro-Russian opposition Party of Regions on a vote to reduce the president's powers.

Yushchenko threatened to call a snap election if the parliament fails to create a new coalition in one month after the old coalition collapsed.