Truce crumbles! EU votes to impose sanctions after President Victor Yanukovych …
Protesters cut down by sniper fire flailing on the ground in agony.
Demonstrators cowering from the bullets beneath flimsy shields fashioned from strips of metal.
Trails of blood on the cobblestoned square as rescuers carry off the dead and dying on wooden boards.
YANNIS BEHRAKIS/REUTERS
Anti-government protesters in Kyiv, Ukraine carry a man with a bullet wound on his leg during clashes with riot police in Independence Square on Thursday, Feb. 20.
Those were the horrific images that emerged from the epicenter of the Ukrainian revolt Thursday as a brief truce gave way to terror and the country’s slide into civil was accelerated.
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At least 70 anti-government protesters were reportedly killed in clashes with security forces loyal to President Victor Yanukovych in Kyiv.
Yanukovych insisted his men weren’t firing live rounds at the people. But footage shown on Ukrainian television painted their president a liar — and angered the world.
LASZLO BELICZAY/EPA
Activists in Ukraine pay their respects to protesters killed in clashes with police in Kyiv on Thursday, Feb.20. At least 70 have reportedly died.
The European Union called an emergency meeting and voted to impose sanctions on the Yanukovych regime.
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President Obama, who had already warned the Ukrainian president that there would be consequences if the violence continued, interrupted his trip to Mexico to consult with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“The options available to the president are being considered with some urgency,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “Basic human rights that we hold so dear in this country are not being respected in that country.”
BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
Paramedics perform a cardiac massage on an anti-government protester who would die shortly afterwards during clashes with riot police in central Kyiv on Thursday, Feb. 20.
But Earnest hastened to add that the U.S., exhausted by two long and expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is not considering any miltary options.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials admitted the demonstrators managed to capture and disarm 67 police officers — and accused the opposition of holding them captive in Kyiv’s city hall.“We must be guided only by the interests of the people, this is our only chance to save people’s lives,” he said.
Captive cops with their hands up were seen being led to the demonstrators’ encampment in the ancient city’s central square.
The ferocious fighting erupted a day after Yanukovych suddenly called a truce and met with leaders of the opposition that has been fighting for three months to oust him.
While Yanukovych and his enemies were talking, some of the hardcore rebels began bombarding riot police with Molotov cocktails, witnesses said.
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The police retaliated with gunfire and demonstrators reported that snipers from the security services were shooting at them from the rooftops.
By dawn Thursday, it was a bloodbath.
Yanukovych insisted the police were not armed and that “all measures to stop bloodshed and confrontation are being taken.”
Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images
Anti-government protesters guard the perimeter of Independence Square, known as Maidan, on Wednesday in Kyiv, Ukraine.
But Yanukovych was contradicted by his own Interior Ministry which announced that security forces were packing heat as part of an “anti-terrorist” operation.
Team Yanukovych also was hit with defections as a top Kyiv city official, Volodymyr Makeyenko, announced he was leaving the president’s party.
“We must be guided only by the interests of the people, this is our only chance to save people’s lives,” he said.
Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Anti-government protesters continue to clash with police in Independence square, despite a truce agreed between the Ukrainian president and opposition leaders on Thursday.
Another key member of Yanukovych’s party said the president has “completely lost control of the situation.”
Yanukovych’s chief backer, Russian president Vladimir Putin, stayed silent as Ukraine burned and the fighting in Kyiv spread to smaller cities in the western half of the country where anti-Yanukovych sentiment is strongest.
But Russia’s Foreign Ministry accused the demonstrators of attempting a coup and staging a “brown revolution,” a reference to the 1933 Nazi putsch that enabled Adolf Hitler to take power in Germany.
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The ministry also vowed that Russia would use “all our influence to restore peace and calm.”
That sent a shiver through Ukraine and stoked fears that Putin might send in troops to put down the uprising – and re-impose Russian rule on a country that has been independent for just 14 years.
Thursday’s violence was the worst in nearly three months of anti-government protests that have paralyzed a country that is divided in loyalties between the West and Moscow.
The demonstrations that morphed into mayhem began in late November after Yanukovych, under pressure from Putin, suddenly refused to sign a long-awaited free trade agreement with the European Union.
Angry Ukrainians accused Yanukovych of selling out to the Russians and rose up in revolt.
Yanukovych continues to draw support from loyalist strongholds in eastern and southern Ukraine, where the Russian minority longs for closer ties to Moscow.
VASILY FEDOSENKO/REUTERS
An anti-government protester after clashes with riot police in Independence Square in Kyiv. At least 21 civilians were killed in fresh fighting in Kyiv on Thursday, after a brief truce in the capital.
VASILY FEDOSENKO/REUTERS
Anti-government protesters carry logs to build barricades after violence erupted in the Independence Square in Kyiv after a brief truce.
Marko Drobnjakovic/AP
An injured anti-government protester is carried away from clashes with police in Kyiv on Thursday, after a brief truce between the demonstrators and the country’s embattled leader.
LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images
A anti-government protester prepares to throw a tire at riot police in central Kyiv on Thursday. At least 25 protesters were killed in fresh clashes between thousands of demonstrators and heavily-armed riot police in the heart Ukraine’s capital.
BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
A protester stands behind barricades during clashes with police in Kyiv on Thursday, as fresh fighting began after a brief truce.
BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
Anti-government protesters stand behind burning barricades during a face-off against police in Independence Square in Kyive on Thursday, after a brief truce with Ukraine’s embattled leader.
VASILY FEDOSENKO/REUTERS
A man tries to identify a body of a victim after violence erupted in the Independence Square in Kyiv on Thursday, after a brief truce in Ukraine’s capital.
LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images
Protesters carry a wounded demonstrator after hundreds of armed protesters charged police barricades on Thursday in Kyiv.
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