A former deputy prime minister of the Ukraine who's been in prison for most of the past six weeks has been re-arrested after being briefly released for hospital treatment on Tuesday.
The minister, Yuliya Timoshenko, is accused of fraud.
Mrs Timoshenko has denied avoiding taxes and helping to funnel more than one-billion dollars out of Ukraine.
Her supporters say Ukrainian prosecutors trumped up the charges to stop Mrs Timoshenko continuing with efforts to bring in market reforms.
Ukrainian minister 'mustn't leave Kiev '
A Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Yulia Timoshenko, who is under investigation for corruption, has been forbidden to leave Kiev without authorisation as long as legal proceedings continue.
The main prosecutor, Mikola Obikhod, told a news conference she had been charged with smuggling and the falsification of documents, but she hadn't been arrested.
Mrs Timoshenko has been accused of funnelling more than one-billion dollars out of Ukraine and of evading tax.
She has denied the charges.
Ukraine's deputy PM charged with fraud
Timoshenko says the opposition are behind the charges
Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister, Yulia Timoshenko, has been charged with "smuggling and falsification of documents," a spokesman for the country's top prosecutor said.
Ms Timoshenko has not been arrested, but the authorities have forbidden her to leave Kiev without authorisation as long as legal proceedings continue, said Mikola Obikhod.
The deputy prime minister is accused of funnelling more than $1.1 billion dollars out of the Ukraine and of cheating tax authorities to the tune of nearly $150,000 between 1997 and 1999.
Ms Timoshenko, 40, denies any wrongdoing and claims that her political opponents, who are upset by her handling of energy reforms, are behind the legal moves and want to wreck her career.
"Everything the prosecutor is doing is illegal," she said on Monday, after six hours of questions. "They are trying to stop me putting the energy sector in order."
Husband jailed
Ms Timoshenko refused to give evidence to the Russian investigators when she was on a visit there at the end of 2000.
Olexander Timoshenko, her husband, was convicted and jailed for corruption in August 2000.
Ms Timoshenko is also a former supporter and associate of ex-Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who was charged by a US grand jury on 11 counts, including money laundering, and is accused in Ukraine of embezzling millions of dollars from the state.
Ukrainian leader on corruption charges
A Ukrainian deputy prime minister has been arrested and accused of fraud.
The minister, Yuliya Timoshenko, has denied avoidng taxes and helping to funnel more than one-billion dollars out of Ukraine.
Her supporters say Ukrainian prosecutors trumped up the charges to stop Mrs Timoshenko continuing with efforts to bring in market reforms.
Mrs Timoshenko's husband is already under arrest, accused of fraud while he was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company linked to a disgraced former prime minister, Pavlo Lazarenko, who was jailed for embezzlement in the United States. The latest official Ukrainian corruption allegations coincide with protests against President Leonid Kuchma, who's being accused of involvement in the murder of an opposition journalist.