KIEV, February 18 (RIA Novosti) – Anti-government protesters and police engaged in violent street battles that left hundreds injured and at least six dead, including two police officers, in Ukraine’s capital on Tuesday.
Fighting escalated in Kiev as a standoff played out inside parliament, where deputies faced off over changes to the constitution that the opposition has said could be a way out of the political paralysis gripping the country.
Thousands of radical demonstrators moving toward the parliament building around midday – many of them wielding shields and sticks, and wearing masks – were confronted by police who deployed rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas. Pictures from the front lines showed rioters ripping up cobblestones to hurl at police.
Lesya Orobets, a deputy with the opposition Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party, said on her Facebook page that at least three protesters had been killed. Radio Free Europe cited opposition medic Olga Bogomolets as also saying from a first aid center near parliament that three people had been killed and seven were in a serious condition.
The Interior Ministry confirmed reports of six dead early Tuesday evening and said police were investigating the matter.
Police earlier said one person was killed at the headquarters of the ruling Party of Regions, which was stormed by demonstrators Tuesday.
Ukrainian officials said early Tuesday evening that if rioting did not die down within two hours – by 6 p.m. local time – authorities would be obliged to restore order by means provided for by law.
Officials said two police officers died from gunshot wounds during the unrest, and about another 35 officers had been injured, five of them wounded by weapons used by protesters.
Operation of the Kiev metro was suspended amid the clashes, and passengers were told to disembark as the trains came to a halt across the city.
A Defense Ministry spokesperson said the seizure of a military building in the city earlier in the day by protestors would provoke an appropriate response by the military, according to the Russian state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
Opposition deputies in parliament blocked the speaker’s rostrum Tuesday in protest against pro-government deputies’ refusal to register a bill introducing reform to the constitution.
The bill was eventually registered, the opposition Svoboda party said later Tuesday on Twitter.
Opposition forces are seeking the restoration of the 2004 constitution, which they say would ensure a way out of the political crisis by transferring more powers to parliament from the president.
A spokesperson for the country’s legislature said that none of the draft resolutions to restore the 2004 constitution submitted Tuesday for consideration by the body had met a requirement of 150 signatures to bring them to the floor.
The Party of Regions has said it is willing to review the law but has refused to automatically return to a previous version.
Moscow reiterated Tuesday that the worsening situation in downtown Kiev is a result of Western interference in the country’s politics, according to a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Large-scale street protests erupted in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities in November after President Viktor Yanukovych backed away from deals to deepen political and economic cooperation with the European Union and instead opted for closer ties with Russia.
The protests have sporadically descended into violence on both sides.
Credit to RIA Novosti
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