The
Interior Ministry announcement of an “antiterrorist operation” across
the country came a day after Kiev was gripped with the deadliest mayhem
since protests erupted in November, leaving at least 25 dead, including
nine police officers. The Health Ministry said that 241 people had been
wounded but Ukrainian news accounts put the number at more than 1,000.
A
statement issued by President Viktor F. Yanukovych’s press office,
posted on the presidential website late Wednesday, said that he had
agreed to a truce with the main opposition leaders and to start
negotiations “with the aim of ending bloodshed and stabilizing the
situation in the state in the interests of social peace.” But there was
no immediate comment from the opposition, and no sign that riot police
officers or protesters in Kiev were pulling back.
Clashes Continue in Ukraine
Antigovernment protests in Kiev continued overnight and into the early hours of Wednesday.
The
violence turned a protest encampment in Kiev’s central Independence
Square into a fiery war zone on Tuesday and sharply escalated the
political crisis that has convulsed the former Soviet republic of 46
million for the past three months. The crisis raised East-West tensions
over Ukraine’s future, with Russia denouncing the protesters as
Nazi-like coup plotters and the European Union threatening severe
sanctions against Ukrainian government leaders.
The
United States said it might join the European sanctions effort and
President Obama pointedly warned that there would be consequences if the
Ukrainian military was ordered to end the protests.
Earlier,
President Yanukovych described the violence as an attempt to overthrow
the government by his political adversaries, who want to push Ukraine
closer to the European Union. “Without any mandate from the people,
illegally and in breach of the constitution of Ukraine, these
politicians — if I may use that term — have resorted to pogroms, arson
and murder to try to seize power,” the president said in a statement.
In
another indication of the gravity of the crisis, Mr. Yanukovych
announced on the presidential website that he had replaced the head of
the armed forces, Gen. Volodmyr Zamana, with the commander of the navy,
suggesting possible loyalty issues among Mr. Yanukovych’s military
leaders. Mr. Yanukovych gave no explanation for the change, but it came
as the government has suggested it may deploy the armed forces to quell
the violence.
An announcement by the SBU, the Ukraine state security service, offered a new indication of turmoil extending beyond Kiev.
“In
many regions of the country, municipal buildings, offices of the
Interior Ministry, state security and the prosecutor general, army units
and arms depots, are being seized,” Oleksandr Yakimenko, the head of
the SBU, said in a statement.
“Courtrooms
are being burned down, vandals are destroying private apartments,
killing peaceful citizens,” the statement said. Mr. Yakimenko said the
past 24 hours had shown “a growing escalation of violent confrontation
and widespread use of weapons by extremist oriented groups.”
In
Kiev on Wednesday, protesters stoked what they called a “ring of fire”
separating them from the riot police in a desperate effort to defend the
remnants of a stage on Independence Square that has been a focal point
of their protests.
Men
staggering with exhaustion dismantled the tents and field kitchens from
the protest movement’s earlier, more peaceful phase and hauled their
remnants onto the fires. They piled on mattresses, sleeping bags, foam
pads and whatever else looked flammable, burning their own encampment in
a final act of defiance.
The
Interior Ministry said all the police officers killed on Tuesday had
died from gunshot wounds, although witnesses said it appeared that
several officers had been trapped in a burning armored vehicle.
As
the scope of the violence became clear, Russia, President Yanukovych’s
most important ally in the crisis, issued a blistering statement blaming
the “criminal activities of radical opposition forces” for causing the
bloodshed and denouncing European countries for refusing to acknowledge
that. When the protests began late last year, demonstrators opposed the
government’s rejection of a trade agreement with the European Union.
A
statement on Wednesday from the Russian Foreign Ministry described the
violence as an attempted coup and even used the phrase “brown
revolution,” an allusion to the Nazi rise to power in Germany in 1933.
The ministry said Russia would use “all our influence to restore peace
and calm.”
A
spokesman said President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had spoken by
telephone with Mr. Yanukovych and expressed support for a swift
settlement, but said it was up to Ukraine’s government to resolve it
without external interference. “In the president’s view, all
responsibility for what is happening in Ukraine rests with the
extremists,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the spokesman, told reporters, according
to the news agency Interfax.
On
the other side of the barricades in Kiev, scores of exhausted riot
police officers, their faces covered in soot, sat slumped on the
sidewalk on Khreshchatyk Street, the main artery leading to Independence
Square. Reinforcements poured in, massing in European Square, a large
roundabout that sits astride main roads leading to the center of the
city. One of these was clogged with around a dozen military-style dump
trucks, armored cars and other vehicles.
But
it was unclear whether the authorities had mustered sufficient force to
complete the operation they began on Tuesday to clear Independence
Square. The security forces did, however, strengthen their grip on the
Ukrainian House, a large modern building that had been occupied by
protesters. Police officers carted out sacks filled with documents and
garbage.
Through
the day on Wednesday, many thousands of people turned up to help the
young men defending Independence Square, suggesting that Kiev remains
solidly behind the protesters, providing them an logistical and moral
support.
They
walked toward the square through a disconcerting scene of charred
buildings and smoldering debris, carrying bags of groceries, tires and
scrap wood for the fires, and jerrycans of gasoline. Two women walked
down a central street of Kiev en route to the square, pushing a shopping
cart rattling with ready-made gasoline bombs in wine bottles.
The
Interior Ministry’s announcement of a nationwide crackdown came after
witnesses and unofficial news reports from outside the capital said
protesters had seized provincial administrative buildings in several
regions, including Lviv, a bastion of anti-Yanukovych sentiment in
western Ukraine near the border with Poland.
Andriy
Porodko, a 29-year-old antigovernment activist in Lviv, said by
telephone that protesters had taken control of the central government’s
main offices in the region, resuming an occupation that had ended last
Sunday. He said they had also raided the local headquarters of the state
prosecutor, the Ukrainian security service and several district police
stations.
Most
ominously, said Mr. Porodko, who last month organized a blockade of an
Interior Ministry garrison on the outskirts of Lviv, around 1,000
protesters had stormed the garrison, which serves as the headquarters of
the Interior Ministry’s western regional command, seizing control of
barracks and weapons stores. A local journalist said that around 140
guns were seized from Lviv’s central police station.
In
Kiev, the fires kept security forces and their vehicles away from the
stage as police officers seemed unwilling to risk driving through the
blazes. It was unclear how long the debris of the protesters’ tent camp
could fuel the bonfires sufficiently to prevent an assault by security
forces.
The
flames from the barricades defended the entrances to the square where
riot police officers were pressing forward but not streets leading from
the plaza. The authorities appeared to be attempting to push the
protesters out through those exits.
Protesters began pounding with clubs on utility poles and makeshift shields, creating a rhythmic din.
With
the center of the city engulfed in thick, acrid smoke and filled with
the deafening noise of grenades, fireworks and occasional gunfire, what
began as a peaceful protest in late November against Mr. Yanukovych’s
decision to spurn a trade deal with Europe and tilt toward Russia became
on Tuesday a pyre of violence.
The
violence seemed likely to resonate for weeks, months or even years
around this fragile and bitterly divided nation. It also exposed the
impotence, in this dispute, of the United States and the European Union,
which had engaged in a week of fruitless efforts to mediate a peaceful
settlement.
Doubts
about the influence of Russia were also shredded, as the Kremlin
portrayed the protesters as American-backed “terrorists” and, in thinly
coded messages, urged Mr. Yanukovych to crack down.
Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. telephoned Mr. Yanukovych to “express
grave concern regarding the crisis on the streets” of Kiev and urged him
“to pull back government forces and to exercise maximum restraint,” the
vice president’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.
Secretary
of State John Kerry urged Mr. Yanukovych to stop the bloodshed. “We
call on President Yanukovych and the Ukrainian government to de-escalate
the situation immediately, and resume dialogue with the opposition on a
peaceful path forward. Ukraine’s deep divisions will not be healed by
spilling more innocent blood,” he said in a statement.
The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, warned the Ukrainian government that it could face sanctions.
“Whoever
is responsible for the decisions which have led to the bloodshed in
Kiev and other parts of Ukraine should expect Europe to reconsider its
position on imposing sanctions on individuals,” Mr. Steinmeier said in a
statement on Tuesday night. The bloodshed erupted only hours after Mr.
Steinmeier had received the two main opposition leaders, Vitali
Klitschko and Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, in Berlin, where they also met
Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The
State Department, in an alert to American citizens, said that travel
into and out of the center of Kiev was restricted and described the
situation as “currently very fluid.” It also warned that roving gangs
had attacked journalists and protesters and committed other random acts
of violence in Kiev and other cities.
“U.S.
citizens whose residences or hotels are in the vicinity of the protests
are cautioned to leave those areas or prepare to remain indoors,
possibly for several days, should clashes occur,” the notice said.
“Further violent clashes between police and protesters in Kiev and other
cities are possible. The location and nature of demonstrations and
methods employed by the police can change quickly and without warning.”
Mr.
Yanukovych had repeatedly pledged not to use force to disperse
protesters, but after meeting Mr. Putin at the opening of the Winter
Olympics in Sochi, he clearly changed his mind. The fighting also broke
out only a day after Russia threw a new financial lifeline to Mr.
Yanukovych’s government by buying $2 billion in Ukrainian government
bonds.
The
Russian aid appeared to signal confidence that important votes in
Parliament expected this week, to amend the Constitution and form a new
cabinet, would go in Russia’s favor.
The New York Times
The New York Times
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