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Ukraine: 25 dead as police, protesters clash in Kiev
2/19/2014 7:19:42 AM
- President asks protesters to distance themselves from "radical forces"
- Another 241 are hospitalized
- A journalist is among the dead
- Tuesday was the most violent day in the months-long street standoff
(CNN) -- Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych distanced his government from any participation in the violent clashes between security forces and protesters that left 25 people dead Tuesday, pinning the blame instead on anti-government demonstrators.
The street protests, he said, violated democratic principles. He demanded that protesters either disentangle themselves "from the radical forces that provoke bloodshed and clashes with law enforcement" -- or admit to being allied with them.
The violence Tuesday was the deadliest since demonstrations started in November.
In addition to the 25 who died, another 241 were hospitalized, Ukraine's health ministry said.
The health ministry website, which posted the figures Wednesday, did not break them down into civilian and police deaths.
But among the deceased was a Ukrainian journalist who died Wednesday from a gunshot wound inflicted the night before when a group of masked people stopped a taxi he was riding in, according to a statement by his newspaper Ukrainian Vesti.
The sparks and the fire
Downtown Kiev was smoldering Wednesday morning, as demonstrators undeterred by a bloody day on the streets staked their claim to the heart of the Ukrainian capital and, they hope, the heart of the country itself.
Dark smoke billowed all around Kiev's Maidan, or Independence Square -- the staging ground for protesters.
The spark for the protests was ignited last year, when President Viktor Yanukovych decided to back away from a trade pact with the European Union. He has instead opted for closer relations to Moscow.
The flames were fueled by underlying opposition sentiments in favor of the West and against Russia, and demonstrators initially calling for a reversal of the decision are now attacking Yanukovych's power base.
They demand new elections and constitutional reforms to transfer more power from the presidency to the parliament.
Yanukovych and his allies have responded with some concessions, even offering places in government to opposition leaders. But on-again, off-again talks have gone nowhere, with the opposition refusing to budge politically and from its positions in the center of Kiev.
The violence
Tuesday's violence followed what seemed like a rare breakthrough.
The government said it'd drop charges against those arrested in the political unrest.
Then protesters pulled back Sunday from Kiev's City Hall after holding it for three months and unblocked streets in the city center.
Everything fell apart Tuesday, when the speaker of parliament refused to allow amendments that would limit the president's powers and restore the constitution to what it was in 2004.
Opposition anger reignited and poured into the streets.
The government's prosecutor general accused the opposition of breaking "the truce," setting the stage for the security crackdown that ensued.
Riot police plowed into the crowd with water cannons, stun grenades and night sticks. Some demonstrators fought back, swinging what looked like baseball bats.
Protesters also set fire to the headquarters of the ruling Party of Regions. Authorities accused them of firing guns at security forces.
An armored personnel carrier charging toward demonstrators' barricades was inundated with what appeared to be Molotov cocktails. The vehicle burst into flames.
As night fell, black smoke and bright flames from burning tires continued to rage around Independence Square, just a few blocks from parliament. Small explosions regularly erupted, some of them caused by fireworks.
Demonstrators also worked through the night to build up their barricades, by forming human chains to pass bricks, rocks and wood to their front lines in anticipation of another police offensive.
Kiev was the center of the action, as in the past.
But police said the unrest has spread to western Ukraine, with protesters attacking police and local government offices in a number of regions.
World appalled
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called by phone Yanukovych to press him to stop the violence, placing the responsibility to de-escalate mainly with government.
Secretary of State John Kerry later backed up the Vice President's words. He called for the Ukrainian government to halt violence immediately, and reopen dialogue with the opposition.
Russia accused Washington of meddling in Ukrainian affairs.
Washington is trying to tell "the authorities of a sovereign state what they should do next and how they should do it," an article in Russia's state-run RIA Novosti's read.
It noted Moscow's persistent support for Yanukovych.
U.N. Sec.-Gen. Ban Ki-moon condemned the clashes in a statement late Tuesday and called for them to stop.
"He reiterates to all sides that the use of violence is unacceptable," it read.
Ban called preventing bloodshed a "paramount priority."
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