Ukraine crisis: EU sanctions push over Kyiv bloodshed
19 February 2014
Last updated at 15:39 GMT
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Protesters are throwing rocks and petrol bombs at police, as Duncan Crawford reports
Europe’s leaders are to consider urgent sanctions against Ukraine after the worst violence in months of unrest claimed at least 26 lives.
There were further violent clashes on Wednesday afternoon as police renewed attempts to dislodge protesters from their stronghold in the capital Kyiv.
President Viktor Yanukovych blamed opposition leaders and Russia spoke of an attempted coup.
But the EU said it expected measures to target those behind the “repression”.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso spoke of the responsibility of “the political leadership” while several EU countries said they had no doubts that the Ukrainian authorities were to blame.
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All this started because of the desire of many Ukrainians to join the EU, and Russia’s feeling this was where its diminution in power had to stop”
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- Fight over influence of West
At a joint news conference, French President Francois Hollande said those responsible for the violence “will be sanctioned” at an emergency meeting due to take place on Thursday, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel echoed the threat, saying they were “side by side with the men and women who suffer”.
Ukraine’s security service has announced a nationwide “anti-terrorist” operation to restore order, while the defence ministry said it was sending paratroopers to Kyiv – to defend government offices and military installations, it stressed, and not to confront anti-government protesters.
Police have been trying to wrest control of Kyiv’s Independence Square, also known as the Maidan, which has been in the hands of protesters for several months.
Satellite image showing smoke rising during Kyiv clashes on 18 February
The protests began in late November, when President Yanukovych rejected a landmark association and trade deal with the EU in favour of closer ties with Russia.
Tensions had begun to subside as recently as Monday, when protesters ended their occupation of government buildings in return for an amnesty from prosecution.
But violence erupted outside parliament on Tuesday morning as government supporters blocked opposition attempts to scale back the president’s constitutional powers. They argued more time was needed to discuss the proposals.
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Analysis
This no longer seems to be a democratic argument over Ukraine’s relationship with Russia. It is a violent power struggle.
The violence is contained – and mostly takes place in 4 sq km (1.5 sq mile) in central Kyiv – but the determination of the most active protesters should not be underestimated, nor should President Viktor Yanukovych’s determination to survive.
It’s unlikely that any leader of a western European democracy would still be in post if similar events had happened in their country.
But although the violent protesters, many inspired by far-right politics, are now focused on revolution, their numbers are small. They alone cannot overthrow the government.
What makes this crisis so serious is the quiet support that many in western Ukraine, particularly in Lviv, are giving to the violence. It means that a split between eastern Ukraine and western Ukraine is being openly discussed, even though few people say they want that.
- A violent power struggle
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Correspondents say it is unclear what sparked the clashes, with each side blaming the other.
Protesters accused pro-government agents provocateurs, known as “titushki”, of inciting some of the violence while the government said radical Right Sector supporters were involved.
Fighting spread to surrounding streets and police launched a first attack on Independence Square on Tuesday evening.
The health minister says at least 600 people have been wounded, more than half of them police officers.
A doctor treating wounded protesters in hospital, Dr Olga Bogomolets, told the BBC: “Police are coming into the hospitals and they are trying to take the wounded people to prison.”
She said hundreds of volunteers were guarding the hospitals in response.
The number of dead on both sides has climbed to 26 and it is feared the death toll could increase. They include:
- Ten police officers, according to the interior ministry, two of them traffic officers
- At least 14 protesters, many killed in the streets around the parliament
- A journalist working for Russian-language newspaper Vesti, Vyacheslav Veremyi, who was pulled from a taxi by masked men and shot dead
Unrest is also reported outside Kyiv, with a woman reportedly shot dead during an attempt to storm a building belonging to the security services in Khmelnytskyy.
Police headquarters have been attacked in the western city of Lviv, where protesters are reported to have seized police cars and police weapons.
Protesters have also seized the regional administration headquarters in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk.
Local media reported that the police station in Ternopil, also in western Ukraine, had been burned down.
‘Crossed the line’
Opposition leaders Vitaly Klitschko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk met President Yanukovych for late night talks but failed to come to an agreement.
In a statement broadcast on TV news channels on Wednesday morning, President Yanukovych said: “The opposition leaders have disregarded the principle of democracy according to which one obtains power not on the streets or maidans – but through elections.
“They have crossed the line by calling for people to take up arms.”
He warned that those responsible for violence would face the law.
But the president added that there was a “better and more effective way” to solve the crisis, through dialogue and compromise.
Russia accused opposition protesters of trying to engineer a “violent takeover of power”.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said responsibility for the escalation of violence lay “specifically with extremists” whose actions could be seen as “an attempted coup d’etat”.
He refused to answer questions about when a second bailout instalment, promised by Moscow on Monday, would be released. Russia’s $15bn (£9bn) bailout was seen as a reward for Mr Yanukovych’s decision in November to pull out of the EU association deal.
The charred edifice of the trade union building on Maidan Square is visible behind protesters. It was set alight late on Tuesday as clashes raged
Protesters have been defending barricades on the Maidan from repeated attacks by riot police
Hundreds of people have been injured on both sides since Tuesday, some of them seriously
After a turbulent night, Kyiv’s Independence Square was relatively quiet during the morning although the clashes had resumed by Wednesday afternoon.
Riot police fired stun grenades and used water cannon while protesters responded with stones and petrol bombs.
Opposition leaders called on Ukrainians elsewhere to come to the square.
“This is an island of freedom and we will defend it,” said Vitaly Klitschko, the leader of the Udar (Punch) party.
Mr Yatsenyuk, who heads the Fatherland party, appealed to President Yanukovych to “stop the bloodshed and call a truce”.
One unifying Ukrainian voice emerged from the Winter Olympics in Sochi in the form of former pole vault champion Sergei Bubka.
Now head of Ukraine’s Olympic Committee, he urged all sides to halt the violence that “puts our country on the brink of catastrophe”.
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