Anti-government protesters are again clashing with police in Kiev, despite a truce agreed between the Ukrainian president and opposition leaders.
Some live rounds have been fired but it is not clear by whom.
Protesters are throwing petrol bombs, while police are using water
cannon.
Three European Union foreign ministers are in Kiev for talks before an EU meeting to discuss possible sanctions.
The health ministry says the death toll in protests this week has risen to 28.
Fires burned at the main protest camp, the Maidan, through
the night. On Thursday morning, BBC journalists there said some live
rounds had been fired and one wounded person was being treated.
Two armoured vehicles have been seen in the street leading towards the square.
Thursday has been declared a day of mourning for the dead.
Most of the victims died during clashes on Tuesday – the bloodiest day since the unrest erupted in late November.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his counterparts
from France and Poland, Laurent Fabius and Radoslaw Sikorski, are
expected to meet President Yanukovych and other government officials on
Thursday morning.
The EU ministers will also hold separate talks with the opposition.
Ahead of the Kiev visit, Mr Fabius called the warring sides to “return to dialogue”, condemning the violence as “unacceptable”.
“Perpetrators of these acts cannot go without sanctions.”
The three ministers will then fly to Brussels for a crisis
meeting with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and other EU
foreign ministers.
They will consider whether to impose sanctions, which could
include a ban on sales of equipment which can be used for internal
repression.
The Ukrainian opposition has been long pressing the EU and US
to impose sanctions against senior government officials believed to be
responsible for the violence against protesters.
The EU has so far refrained from such a move, preferring to stress dialogue and compromise.
Meanwhile, the US state department announced on Wednesday it had imposed visa bans on 20 members of Ukraine’s government.
A senior state department said all those were civilians whom
Washington held responsible for the violence. The official declined to
provide any names.
‘Protect human life’
Announcing the truce on late on Wednesday, the presidential
statement said it was agreed to “start negotiations aimed at stopping
the bloodshed, stabilising the situation in the country and achieving
social peace”.
It did not give details of what the truce would entail or how it would be implemented.
The opposition leaders present at the talks were Arseniy
Yatsenyuk and also boxer-turned-politician Vitali Klitschko and
far-right party leader Oleh Tyahnybok.
Mr Yatsenyuk confirmed the deal had been reached, saying in a
statement on his Fatherland party website that “the main thing is to
protect human life”.
The media wing of Vitali Klitschko’s Udar party said the next
round of negotiations with President Yanukovych would resume later on
Thursday.
But a BBC correspondent in Kiev, Daniel Sandford, has urged
caution, pointing out that none of the hardcore protesters have so far
attended talks with the president.
The news came after the most intense violence in Ukraine’s
three-month crisis turned Kiev into a battle zone between
anti-government protesters and riot police.
The protests first erupted when President Yanukovych rejected
a landmark association and trade deal with the EU in favour of closer
ties with Russia.
Since then, the protests spread across Ukraine, with the main demand of snap presidential and parliamentary elections.
