Telegraph report.

A Russian-speaker with close ties to Moscow's ruling United Russia party, Mr Yanukovych is expected to prioritise a raft of policies that will mend Ukraine's fractious relations with its giant neighbour. He is also likely to give the Kremlin more say in the management of the country's strategically vital gas pipeline network that carries gas to Europe and heats millions of European homes.

His victory would mean that Ukraine, itself a giant country on the EU's eastern flank with almost 50 million people and a huge standing army, would drop its ambitions to join Nato and put its EU membership bid on the backburner.