Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

top

World

Police, protesters wage ‘war’ in deadly Kiev clashes

– Russia blames West –

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was “deeply worried about the grave new escalation.”

UN chief Ban Ki moon called for restraint and dialogue, while German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned that the violence could lead to EU sanctions against those responsible.

But a top Russian lawmaker said Ukraine which is divided between a pro-EU west and a pro Russian east was on the brink of a civil war that he claimed had been inflamed by the West.

“I consider that a significant amount of responsibility for this falls on the West and Western politicians, who are constantly putting pressure on the Ukrainian authorities,” Alexei Pushkov told Russia’s Interfax news agency.
– Fighting spreads –

The violence erupted after the crisis appeared to have abated in recent days, with both sides making concessions that saw protesters vacate Kiev city hall on Sunday after being granted an amnesty deal.

But on Tuesday, some 20,000 anti Yanukovych protesters clashed with police outside parliament as they rallied for lawmakers to strip the president of a raft of powers.

Running street battles broke out and protesters took back control of city hall and attacked Yanukovych’s party headquarters with petrol bombs.

After threatening “grave actions” if the unrest did not cease, police first stormed the square in the early evening, warning women and children through loudspeakers to leave as they began their “anti terrorist” operation.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

But some 25,000 people, many of them wearing makeshift body protection and wielding iron bars and bats, remained to defy the riot squads.

The violence also spread to the west of the country, where thousands of protesters overran public buildings, including the police and special forces’ headquarters in the historic city of Lviv, where they took control of an arms warehouse.

In Ternopil, protesters lobbed Molotov cocktails at a local government building before occupying it, while similar scenes played out in the city of Ivano Frankivsk.

Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka warned he would seek the “harshest punishments” for those deemed to have been behind Tuesday’s violence.

About The Author

Pages: 1 2

Comments
Advertisement

More on Capital News