President Viktor Yanukovych and the political opposition took one more shot at reaching a compromise in direct talks on Jan. 23, a hopeful sign in and of itself. But it’s not clear whether – absent early presidential elections – any deal will be enough to tamp down public anger over some of the horrendous atrocities allegedly committed by the government and, it is suspected, their agents since the EuroMaidan movement started on Nov. 21.

Let’s recount some of them:

At least two protesters were gunned down on the street on Jan. 22 after police moved to disperse a crowd of demonstrators in the Hrushevskoho Street standoff that began on Jan. 19. Officials said police weren’t using guns, then admitted they were using guns, but only with rubber bullets. But the bullet holes in the two dead men plus the metal bullets and shotgun shell casings that littered the ground told a different story – one of a police force armed to kill with snipers and indiscriminate shooting and beatings designed to terrorize.

Dmytro Bulatov, the leader of AutoMaidan, the car convoys that picket officials’ homes, is missing and it appears that groups of hired thugs are roving the streets of Kyiv to harass, beat up and even kidnap activists.

Two activists, Yuriy Verbytsky and Ihor Lutsenko, were abducted from a Kyiv hospital by a group of 10 men on Jan. 21. Both were kidnapped and beaten. Lutsenko survived to tell his story. Verbytsky died from exposure after being beaten and left to die outside. Police looked suspicious because of their insistence that the men were not kidnapped, despite eyewitness accounts to the contrary.

Ukraine’s top officials called in Western diplomats for a meeting on Jan. 22, the same day as the fatal crackdown, and tried to convince them that draconian laws curbing free speech and free assembly are in line with European democratic standards. The new laws actually pave the way for a police state to exist.

Journalists appear to be targeted for assault for simply doing their jobs, as the case of an Espresso TV journalist who was beaten and abducted before being released. Since the start of EuroMaidan on Nov. 21, dozens of journalists have been beaten – mostly by police or unknown thugs.

The attacks intensified since the Hrushevskoho Street standoff started on Jan. 19, with the Information for Mass Information counting 42 journalists who were either physically attacked or had equipment destroyed.

Police appear to routinely flout due process and engage in beatings, tortures and other illegal acts, part of the reason why very few people trust the judicial system from police to prosecutors to courts.