KIEV: As Ukraine votes in parliamentary polls on Sunday, the candidates to watch include a pilot imprisoned in Russia, the leader of a volunteer battalion and a former minister under ex-president Viktor Yanukovych.
-- NADIYA SAVCHENKO
A female military helicopter pilot who fought against pro-Russian separatists in the east before being captured by them. She heads the list of the Batkyvschina (Fatherland) party led by former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, despite being detained in Russia.
The 33-year-old has a reputation for toughness after overcoming gender prejudice to become one of the country's first female bomber pilots. She was deployed in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and was nicknamed "G.I. Jane" by Ukrainian media.
When the conflict broke out, she left to fight in the east with the Aidar battalion, one of the volunteer groups formed to back up the army against the separatists.
In early July the Russian authorities announced her arrest, accusing her of the pre-meditated murder of two Russian journalists in east Ukraine in mid-June.
She has been incarcerated in the Serbsky centre in Moscow, a psychiatric hospital notorious for its detention of Soviet dissidents. Russian investigators said this was justified by the "gravity" of her crime that could be punishable by a life sentence.
-- ANDRIY BILETSKIY
The 35-year-old commander of Ukraine's far-right volunteer Azov battalion has defended the southern city of Mariupol, a strategic port and the only major city in east Ukraine still under Kiev's control.
He is standing as an independent candidate in a residential district of Kiev. A historian with nationalist beliefs, he wants to overhaul the army.
He calls for a resumption of the fighting in the east to force out the separatists who control a large part of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. For him, keeping to the status quo is a "crime against Ukraine".
-- OLEG LYASHKO
The eccentric leader of the populist nationalist Radical Party is a 41-year-old former journalist with a criminal record for theft. He defied expectations to come third in the presidential polls in May. His party is now running second after the bloc of President Petro Poroshenko, according to opinion polls.
Charismatic and a good orator, this fan of eye-catching stunts backs a stronger offensive against the separatists and has made appearances at the side of fighters in the east. He often carries his personal symbol -- a fork -- with him on television talk shows.
He has been criticised by Amnesty International for releasing videos of himself violently interrogating people accused of backing pro-Russian rebels.
-- MUSTAFA NAYEM
The 33-year-old investigative reporter of Afghan origin is standing for Poroshenko's party.
He wrote a Facebook post that mobilised supporters of European integration to protest after the Ukrainian authorities refused to sign a deal with the European Union. The movement grew in size and eventually toppled the pro-Russian regime of Yanukovych. He thinks new faces are needed in power to change the system.
-- YURIY BOIKO
The 56-year-old former energy minister under Yanukovych was in charge of gas talks with Russia. He leads the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc, a proxy of the Regions Party of the toppled president.
He has been challenged by media over the alleged siphoning off of $300 million during the Ukrainian state company's purchase of oil derricks, nicknamed Boiko's towers. He rejected the allegations.
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