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Ukrainian protesters take over government building

KYIV, Ukraine, Jan. 24 (UPI) — Ukrainian protesters took over a government building in Kyiv Friday after talks to defuse the violent uprising failed, an opposition member said.

The protesters barricaded themselves inside the Agrarian Policy Ministry on Khreschatyk Street, a senior member of the opposition told Interfax-Ukraine.

“People will keep warm in the building,” said the source, whose name wasn’t reported.

Opposition leader Vitali Klitschko, a former heavyweight boxing champion, urged activists to stick to a truce while President Viktor Yanukovych carried out a potential compromise aimed at ending violent clashes with police, Ukraine’s Espreso TV reported.

But demonstrators whistled as he spoke, expressing skepticism Yanukovych would keep his side of the bargain, and began erecting fresh barricades around their camp in central Kyiv in the early hours Friday.

Yanukovych and nationalist leader Oleh Tyahnybok told the activists amid heckling the tentative agreement would free dozens of detained protesters and potentially create another space for protests similar to Independence Square, where demonstrators have camped out since early December.

They said new laws suppressing political dissent would be reviewed at a special parliamentary session next week.

Klitschko and Tyahnybok also said authorities guaranteed police wouldn’t fire on protesters with live ammunition, something officials denied ever occurred, even as at least five demonstrators were shot to death during clashes with police early Wednesday.

The protester defiance came amid growing reports and evidence of brutality by riot police and other security forces, including beatings and stabbings by police of protesters and random people.

A video published Thursday by independent newspaper Ukrainska Pravda shows a male activist stripped naked except for boots in 14 degree Fahrenheit temperatures by a group of officers from the feared Berkut riot police, a special unit of the Ukrainian militia within the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The video, also posted on YouTube, shows the naked man standing on a snow-covered street being forced by a police officer to be photographed while several other officers looked on.

Another officer is seen grabbing the man by the back of the neck, forcing him to hold an ice scraper, then slapping him on the head and kicking him as he directs him into a police bus.

Welts can be seen on the man’s back as he climbs into the bus.

The Interior Ministry, which oversees the riot police, issued an apology, calling the treatment an “inadmissible action,” and said the incident would be investigated.

Unrest also spread beyond Kyiv, the capital, to several other cities, including Lviv and Rivne in western Ukraine and Cherkasy in central Ukraine.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden urged Yanukovych to defuse the spiraling standoff, warning “further bloodshed would have consequences for Ukraine’s relationship with the United States,” the White House said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was “furious” about the worsening violence and the government’s handling of it, and called on Yanukovych to respect law and basic rights.

A top EU official, Stefan Fuele of the Czech Republic, was to arrive in Kyiv Friday and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is to visit Kyiv next week, the 28-member bloc said.