Third President of Ukraine (2005-2010) Viktor Yuschenko has said that the appointment of Yulia Tymoshenko as prime minister of Ukraine was his mistake.

"I made a mistake. The appointment of Tymoshenko as prime minister was the main mistake," Yuschenko said in an interview with the First National TV Channel on October 3 in the evening.

Yuschenko said that after the Orange Revolution "society's expectations" were in favor of Tymoshenko, and that is why she, and not Petro Poroshenko, took the position of prime minister in 2005.

The ex-president stressed that Poroshenko was better prepared for the position at that time.

Yuschenko also said that at that time he thought the criminal cases against Tymoshenko were "political persecution."

"I though that they were unfair," Yuschenko said.

He added that the appointments of Oleksandr Turchynov as chief of the Security Service of Ukraine and Yuriy Lutsenko as interior minister also were his mistakes.

"The decision to appoint Turchynov as chief of the security service and Lutsenko as interior minister was wrong," Yuschenko said.

According to Yuschenko, "the mistake was in the fact that those politicians came to play politics from the very beginning."