Ukraine Protests Explode in Kiev Violent Confrontations

The Reuters report from Kiev this evening is not promising. Reuters reports that Ukrainian opposition leaders emerged from crisis talks with President Viktor Yanukovich on Wednesday saying he had failed to give concrete answers to their demands, and they told their supporters on the streets to prepare for a police offensive. The spark for the latest ororests waw the new anti-protest laws, hastily passed by parliament last week take effect today, Wednesday to outlaw putting up tents in public areas and banning baklavas and masked protesters. The emotional language of the opposition leaders came after the deaths earlier in the day of at least three protesters - two of them from gunshot wounds. Ukrainian aurhorities sqy their security force is equipped only with rubber bullets. The three opposition leaders who met Yanukovich said they were ready to face police bullets. Vitaly Klitschko, former world heavyweight boxing champion, told the thousands of protesters gathered on Kiev's Independence Square, called Maidan by Urkainians, that during three hours of talks the president had given no clear response to their demands that the government be dismissed and sweeping anti-protest laws ditched. "Today they (the police) are preparing to clear us out of the 'Maidan'....We must do all we can to stop them clearing us out," he said. He urged people to stay overnight and defend the square in central Kiev, and drew a roar of support from protesters when he declared : "If I have to go (into the streets) under bullets, I shall go there under bullets....Tomorrow if the President does not respond...then we will go on the offensive," he said. Kater, Klutschko told CNN that by "going on the offensive," he meant a national strike, not violent confrontration. Former economy minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, another opposition leader, agreed with Klitschko, referred to the overnight shooting deaths that the opposition blame on police, an allegation denied by police. A third man died after falling from the top of Dynamo football stadium while fighting with police. "I will not live in shame. Tomorrow we will go forward together. If there will be a bullet in the forehead, so be it. It will be honest, just and brave action," he said. The deaths were the first protest-related fatalities in the crisis that began last November after Yanukovich rejected a trade deal with the European Union in favor of financial aid from Soviet-era overlord Russia to prop up Ukraine's failing economy. The direct talks between Yanukovich and the opposition were the first move in attempting to negotiate an end to two months of civil unrest between hard-core radical protesters and police. The protesters, angered by news of the deaths, again on Wednesday confronted riot police, whom they have battled near the Ukrainian parliament since Sunday night. Repelled by occasional forays of baton-wielding riot police, the demonstrators returned to Maidan, burning tires that sent clouds of black smoke wafting into police lines. Fifty people were detained overnight and 29 of them were officially charged with taking part in mass unrest, police said, adding that a total of 167 police have been injured. Estimate put of the number of civilians injured at 200. Ahead of the talks with protest leaders Klitschko, Yatsenyuk and far-right nationalist Oleh Tyahnibok, President Yanukovich issued a statement deploring the overnight loss of life. Urging people not to heed the calls of "political radicals", Yanukovich said: "I am against bloodshed, against the use of force, against inciting enmity and violence." But his prime minister, Mykola Azarov, took a tough public line before flying off to the economic forum in Davos, denouncing the protesters as "terrorists" and "criminals." He blamed opposition leaders for inciting "criminal action" by backing the protests which he said had destabilized Ukraine, probably a reference to a smaller group of hardcore radicals who effectively hijacked the movement Wednesday by attacking police with petrol bombs, fireworks and cobblestones. Police responded with rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas. Underlining Washington's disapproval of the way Ukraine has handled the protests, the US Embassy in Kiev said it had revoked the visas of several Ukrainians linked to police violence against the demonstrators in November and December. It did not name the officials, but said it was considering further action. A State Department spokeswoman said the United States strongly condemned the violence, as well as "the targeted attacks against journalists and peaceful protesters," blaming tensions on the government's anti-democratic measures but also said the extreme-rightist group Pravy Sektor was inflaming the situation. "We urge all sides to immediately de-escalate the situation and refrain from violence," she said in a statement. The European Union called on Ukraine's government and opposition to "engage in a genuine dialogue." "I strongly condemn the violent escalation of events in Kiev overnight leading to casualties. The reported deaths of several protesters are a source of extreme worry," EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement. European Commission President Jose Manue Barroso said the EU could also take action against Ukraine. Russiab Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has told European governments to stop meddling in Ukraine's political crisis and said events could be spinning out of control. BBC reported that Lavrov described violent clashes between anti-government protesters and police as "scary" and accused EU politicians of stirring up the situation, saying uninvited foreign leaders had participated in the demonstrations, an apparent reference to the EU's Ashton's and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle's visits to Kiev during December marches. The Ukraine media said opposition leaders denounced the participants in the melee as provocateurs and said they did not represent the aspirations of the peaceful protesters, but the leaders were also powerless to stop the fighting. By midnight on Wednesday, the streets were a scene of utter mayhem. Those fighting the police struck them with lengths of pipes and sticks, and hurled cobblestones the size of soccer balls into their midst. They sent fireworks whistling and sparking into their ranks, and threw what appeared to be firebombs, blossoming into flames when they struck. The police stumbled backward, patting at their clothes as fire burned their metal shields. ~~~~~ Dear readers, European media are describing the currenr situation in Ukraine as "chaos" on Europe's doorstep. Russia, on the eastern doorstep of Ukraine, has told Europe to stay out of Ukraine's internal affairs. As I said in my December 10, 2013, blog : "For Vladimir Putin, the last thing he wants is a democratic Ukraine spreading its ideas into the Russian region next door - from St. Petersburg to Moscow - where such ideas would find fertile ground." The Ukraine has had a troubled history with President Victor Yanukovich. He was rejected by the Ukraine in the 2004 Orange Revolution protests led by the iconic Yulia Timoshenko, now imprisoned by Yanukovich for corrruption, a charge that half of Ukrainians see as politically motivated. Yanukovich, elected in 2010, has the reputation of being a hardline Soviet-era autocrat. The people of Ukraine fear losing thier post-Soviet freedoms if they allow Yanukovich to align the Ukraine with the Russia of Vladimir Putin. Although Putin is now fully occupied with trying to provide a terrorist-free Winter Olympics, he is surely watching the Ukraine. Could the Ukraine buffer zone between Europe and Russia become a fullblown civil war? It is in everyone's interests to prevent that. The searing images coming out of Syria, reminiscent of the Holocaust, should warn us that civil war in Ukraine could plunge Europe into a confrontation with Russia that could spin out of control.