KIEV: About 100 police were injured yesterday in clashes that broke out as 100,000 outraged Ukrainians swarmed Kiev in a call for early elections meant to punish authorities for rejecting a historic EU pact.
The crowd chanted “Revolution!” and “Down with the gang” as it took control of Kiev’s iconic Independence Square, while protesters steered a bulldozer within striking distance of police barricades protecting the nearby presidential adminstration office.
Reporters saw security forces outside the presidential building fire stun grenades and smoke bombs at a few dozen masked demonstrators who were pelting police with stones and what Ukrainian media said were molotov cocktails.
Kiev police spokeswoman Olga Bilyk said by telephone that around 100 officers were wounded in the day-long protest. A reporter saw three protesters covered in blood from head wounds and other injuries.
Two AFP photographers and a local cameraman with the Lyon-based Euronews television news channel also received slight injuries in the unrest.
Kiev police said a few dozen members of the nationalist Svoboda party had also taken control of an empty Kiev city hall building and set up what they described as the new temporary headquarters of the united opposition.
“The government and president must resign,” world boxing champion turned opposition leader Vitali Klitschko told the Independence Square crowd to loud cheers and cries of “Yes!”
“A revolution is starting in Ukraine,” added Svoboda party chief Oleh Tyagnybok. “We are setting up a tent city on Independence Square... and launching a national strike,” he said in dramatic scenes aired live on television stations in both Ukraine and Russia.
But both leaders distance themselves from the violence outside President Viktor Yanukovych’s office and issued calls for calm.
“None of our protest members attacked Yanukovych’s lair,” parliamentary opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk told reporters at the rally.
Ukrainian media said Yanukovych — elected in 2010 with strong backing from the Russian-speaking east of the ex-Soviet sate—spent most of Sunday huddling with his most senior advisers at a secluded suburban residence.
An unnamed government source told the ITAR-TASS news agency that Yanukovych was thinking of imposing a nationwide state of emergency from Monday.
Main opposition leaders such as Klitshcko—seen as one of the president’s most potent rivals in elections set for March 2015 -- are now calling for early elections and an indefinite nationwide strike.
AFP
