Little more than 100 days after Viktor Yushchenko won the Ukrainian presidency on the back of "Orange Revolution" pro-democracy protests, a petrol shortage has forced him to delve into the nitty-gritty of managing the country.

Mr Yushchenko, a former central bank chairman who had sought to maintain a detached, presidential role away from day-to-day government, last week stepped in to defuse a fuel crisis sparked last month when Yulia Tymoshenko, his hand-picked prime minister, ordered price caps on oil.