Thousands of Ukrainian riot police launched a raid on Kiev’s protest camp early on Wednesday, beginning an hours-long stand-off with demonstrators that showed little sign of abating by morning.
Police descended on the city’s central Independent Square around midnight local time, just hours after President Viktor Yanukovich met EU foreign policy chief Lady Ashton and vowed to continue talks over Ukraine’s further integration with the EU.
By 9:00am local time, riot police had cleared barricades and protest tents from the main streets in central Kiev and moved on to force protesters out of the Kiev municipal city government building which they seized more than a week ago. Thousands of anti-government protesters remained on the streets in defiance calling for Mr Yanukovich to be ousted, chanting: “Out with the bandits.”
Citing police officials, Interfax-Ukraine news agency, reported that only eight protesters had been detained by law enforcement, and all of them had been released after a few hours.
While police had resorted to violence in an earlier clash at the start of December that injured dozens, Wednesday’s stand-off was considerably more peaceful both on the part of the police and the protesters.
On the square’s main stage, Orthodox priests led the crowd in chants while thousands of protesters streamed into the area, summoned in the middle of night by phone calls and text messages from friends and the sound of church bells from an opposition-friendly church.
US secretary of state John Kerry issued a condemnation of the police action.
“The United States expresses its disgust with the decision of Ukrainian authorities to meet the peaceful protest in Kiev’s Maidan Square with riot police, bulldozers, and batons rather than with respect for democratic rights and human dignity,” Mr Kerry said in a statement.
Source: The Financial Times
