Ukrainian riot police advanced on the heart of 12-week-old protests against President Viktor Yanukovich on Tuesday and security forces set a deadline to end disturbances after at least five protesters were reported killed in a day of clashes.
Forces loyal to the
Russian-backed leader broke through front-line barricades near the
Dynamo Kiev soccer stadium and marched to the edge of occupied
Independence Square hours after Moscow gave Ukraine $2 billion in aid it
had been holding back to demand decisive action to crush the
pro-European protests.
Clashes
raged for several hours outside the parliament building, where
opposition lawmaker Lesya Orobets said three demonstrators were killed
and taken to a nearby officers’ club used as a medical center. More than
100 people were injured, she said.
“Three
bodies of our supporters are in the building. Another seven are close
to dying (because of wounds),” she said on her Facebook page.
Two
more bodies were lying in front of a Metro station on the southeastern
side of Independence Square, a photographer told Reuters.
The casualty reports could not be independently confirmed.
The
State Security Service (SBU), in a joint statement with the interior
ministry, set protesters a 6 p.m. deadline to end street
disorder or face “tough measures”.
“If
by 6 p.m. the disturbances have not ended, we will be obliged to
restore order by all means envisaged by law,” the statement said.
The defense ministry issued a separate warning to protesters to evacuate the officers’ club near parliament.
However,
it was not clear whether the ultimatums presaged an imminent assault on
the core opposition encampment on Independence Square, known as Maidan,
where peaceful demonstrators have held a protest vigil for three
months.
Nationwide
protests against Yanukovich erupted in November after he bowed to
Russian pressure and pulled out of a planned far-reaching trade
agreement with the European Union, deciding instead to accept a Kremlin
bailout for the former Soviet republic’s heavily indebted economy.
Monday’s
$2 billion cash injection, a resumption of the $15 billion aid package,
was seen as a signal that Russia believes Yanukovich has a plan to end
the protests and has dropped any idea of bringing opposition leaders
into government.
In
another apparent gesture towards Moscow, a Ukrainian government source
said state gas company Naftogaz has paid back $1.3 billion of its 2013
debt to Russian gas monopoly Gazprom, although it still owes $1.5
billion.
Ukraine’s hryvnia currency fell towards five-year lows after the fresh outbreak of violence, with importers seeking dollars.
As
protesters and police battled on the streets of Kiev, Russia called the
escalation a “direct result of connivance by Western politicians and
European structures that have shut their eyes … to the aggressive
actions of radical forces”.
While
Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have won the battle for
influence in Ukraine for now, protesters who have occupied the center of
the capital are not going quietly.
“I
think Russia received some kind of assurances from the Kiev leadership
that were satisfactory, because only a day before there was nothing like
it,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, former Kremlin adviser and political analyst
in Moscow.
“I think
Yanukovich showed he would stick firmly by his position in talks (with
the opposition), he would not make excessive concessions, he would fight
the radicals who are getting stronger in the opposition … and that
the (new) prime minister would not be a member of the opposition.”
But
rather than boosting Yanukovich, Moscow’s move may have helped to
provoke a more violent turn in the protests, especially from those
demonstrators who have a strong anti-Kremlin agenda.
Several
thousand protesters torched vehicles and hurled stones in the worst
violence to rock the capital Kiev in more than three weeks.
Police
replied by firing rubber bullets and stun and smoke grenades from
trucks and from the tops of buildings, forcing the protesters back by
about 100 meters.
“The
authorities do not want to compromise on any issue … We understand
that yet another odious candidate will be put forward (for prime
minister), one who will be unable to restore the economy or end the
political crisis,” said Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, an opposition deputy.
Right
Sector, a militant far-right group, added to tension by calling on
people holding weapons to go to Independence Square, center of the
revolt, to protect it from a possible move by security forces to break
it up.
Inside parliament,
where opposition leaders brought proceedings to a halt by blocking the
speaker’s tribune, opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko urged Yanukovich
to take riot police off the streets to avert further “conflict in
society”.
“It will be the decision of a real man,” the boxer-turned-politician told reporters inside parliament.
The
protesters had marched to the parliament building to press the
opposition leaders’ calls for Yanukovich to relinquish what they call
his “dictatorial” powers and particularly his control of the economy and
the security forces.
But
when they were blocked by a line of trucks about 100 meters from the
building, they hurled stones at police, a Reuters witness said, and set
three trucks ablaze with petrol bombs.
As the clashes extended into early afternoon, protesters ransacked a nearby office of Yanukovich’s Party of the Regions.
“WE’RE NOT FOR SALE”
In
what has become a geo-political tussle redolent of the Cold War, the
United States and its Western allies are urging Yanukovich to turn back
to Europe and the prospect of an IMF-supported recovery, while Russia
accuses them of meddling.
A
senior EU official in Brussels said aid from the European Union and/or
The International Monetary Fund was still available, though it is tied
to reforms.
“It must be
done in the context of a Ukrainian government really eager to reform and
to do the necessary reform for its economy, in the energy sector in
many other sectors, in the modernization of industry etc,” the official,
who asked not to be named, said.
News
of the fresh credit from Russia failed to cheer the currency market,
where the Ukrainian hryvnia fell by up to 1.6 percent against the dollar
on Tuesday, Reuters trading system showed.
It
also failed to impress the protesters. “We don’t need this money from
Russia because it is not meant to help but to buy us. But we are not for
sale. Can’t they see that this is simply a dirty bribe?,” said
protestor Valentin Sypko.
