Ukraine's parliament on Tuesday passed a resolution, which set Feb. 25 for the inauguration of President-elect Victor Yanukovych.

The resolution was backed by 238 MPs, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported.

Ukraine's Central Elections Commission (CEC) declared Yanukovych winner of the presidential election Sunday.

A final count of the votes showed Yanukovych defeating Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko by 3.48 percent points after the Feb. 7 presidential runoff.

NATO and the United States, the traditional supporters of the " Orange camp" brought to power by the 2004 "revolution" spearheaded by Tymoshenko, have congratulated Yanukovych on his election.

However, Tymoshenko on Tuesday filed an appeal to the Higher Administrative Court against election results, saying she had evidence of fraud in the runoff.

Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have declared the elections "professional, transparent and honest" in a joint statement with other international observers.

A Ukrainian electoral official told Xinhua earlier this week that Yanukovych's victory was "unassailable," though it was won by a small margin.

Volodymyr Fesenko, director of the Penta Center of Applied Political Studies, said Tymoshenko's challenge to the election results in court was meaningless and would not lead to a revote like the one at the end of 2004 during the "Orange Revolution."

Situated in the Eurasian heartland, Ukraine has a sizable territory and population. These make it a nation of great strategic importance. Ukraine has also played an increasingly important role between NATO and Russia after NATO began its eastward expansion.

Analysts believed that Yanukovych will make some major readjustments in foreign policies, but he is not expected to go too far to side entirely with Russia.

Instead, he is expected to try to strike a balance between Russia and Europe in order to serve the long-term national interests of Ukraine, they said.