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Ukraine may issue state of emergency if protesters don't leave Justice Ministry
Photo: EPA
The building of Justice Ministry has been occupied by protesters, RT reports. Local media reported that no one was hurt during the seizure of the building of the Justice Ministry in central Kiev. Following the incident, political organization Obchee Delo claimed responsibility, posting a message on their Facebook profile.
"At 22:38 security in the building called in an attempted seizure of the building. Information was confirmed, the building remains seized,” police said, according to Unian news agency.
Ukrainian Justice Minister Elena Lukash has said she will ask the National Security and Defense Council to introduce a state of emergency if rioters do not leave the ministry building.
"If the protesters do not leave the Justice Ministry building in half an hour I will ask the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine to impose the state of emergency,” she told Inter TV channel.
Lukash said the ministry building was captured just when the last amendments were being made to the law “On Changes to the Constitution of Ukraine” in order to return to the 2004 text of the constitution.
UDAR party leader Vitaly Klitschko has entered the building, Interfax reported.
According to AFP, the group entered the building without any resistance and is currently building a system of barricades just outside the building. Common Cause is reportedly the same group that earlier occupied the Energy and Agricultural Ministries.
The building of Justice Ministry has been occupied by protesters, RT reports. Local media reported that no one was hurt during the seizure of the building of the Justice Ministry in central Kiev. Following the incident, political organization Obchee Delo claimed responsibility, posting a message on their Facebook profile.
Ukrainian Defense Ministry has ruled out using armed forces against rallying protesters, media say. In an interview with a Russian news agency, the country's military chief said Ukraine's constitution did not have a provision for that.
"The Army is to strictly abide by the constitution and laws of Ukraine, which define its role, function and tasks, including the cases when armed forces can be used," Pavel Lebedev said on Sunday.
At a meeting of Ukrainian opposition leaders Arseny Yatsenyuk, Vitali Klitschko and Oleh Tyahnybok with President Viktor Yanukovych an understanding was reached on gradually clearing the streets and squares of Kiev of protesters as well as law enforcers.
The presidential press service reports that this was announced by first deputy head of the presidential administration Andriy Portnov.
"The sides agreed that the squares and streets of the city of Kiev would be gradually cleared of both protesters and law enforcers," Portnov said.
The Ukrainian opposition called Sunday for more negotiations with the government, just hours after rebuffing an invitation to join the administration.
"We do not reject the offer, but we also don't accept it," Arseniy Yatsenyuk, an opposition leader and former foreign minister, was quoted saying by Interfax news agency.
His comments came amid renewed violence. Protestors tried to storm the Congress Center near Independence Square. Police used teargas and stun grenades, according to Kiev Post newspaper.
Fire broke out in the former Lenin Museum.
President Viktor Yanukovych had offered Yatsenyuk and former boxing world champion Vitali Klitschko the posts of premier and deputy premier.
Klitschko rejected the offer, telling a cheering crowd that the opposition would insist on elections this year to unseat Yanukovych.
Yatsenyuk said earlier that the opposition was prepared to take over the government - but only with the purpose of leading the country into the European Union.
"But we don't believe one word of those in power," he cried.
Opposition leaders turned down Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich's proposal following a Saturday meeting where top government posts were offered to protest leaders and a review of the constitution was promised.
The proposals were rejected, with the head of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform party, Vitaly Klitschko, saying that current laws must be abolished and presidential elections must be held this year. He added that negotiations will continue.
"Our country is put by those at power to the brink of falling apart," said Batkivschina leader Arseny Yatsenyuk. "We demand that Yanukovich relieves the position of ukraine's president and we need a new constitution."
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has offered a post of Prime Minister to the head of the Batkivschyna opposition faction, Arseny Yatsenyuk, and post of Deputy Minister of Humanitarian Issues to the leader of the UDAR Party, Vitaly Klitschko, Minister of Justice Yelena Lukash has informed.
"In case Yatsenyuk agrees to become Prime Minister, the Ukrainian President will dismiss the government," Lukash is quoted as saying by the President's press service.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych promised to consider changes to the Ukrainian constitution - which currently gives the head of state huge powers - either through a referendum or through legislation.
The Ukrainian government and opposition have also agreed that protesters as well as police officers should leave the streets of Kiev, Andrei Portnov, the First Deputy Head of the President's administration has announced.
"The sides have agreed that Kiev squares and streets will be gradually cleared of both protesters and police," he said on Saturday.
A meeting between Viktor Yanukovych, members of the task force for settling the political crisis and the leaders of opposition factions, Vitaly Klitschko, Arseny Yatsenuyk and Oleg Tyahnybok, lasted for three hours.
The head of the President's administration and task force, Andrei Klyuyev, the First Deputy of the President's administration, Andrei Portnov, and Minister of Justice, Yelena Lukash, also took part in the meeting which became the third over the passed week.
Both policemen whom protesters had held hostage in the Kiev city administration were released on Saturday. Clashes between radical protesters and the Interior Ministry's troops have stopped in the evening.
Everything is quiet in the streets now. Aggressively minded citizens do not make noise banging on metal objects. The police have stopped the water cannons. A pile of tires, separating the line of the police officers from the protesters, continues to burn. Through the smoke it is possible to see new units of policemen coming to help their colleagues.
Earlier it was reported that after a lull, the clashes between the radicals and soldiers of internal troops and special forces of the Interior Ministry in the Hrushevsky Street were resumed.
Besides, demonstrators burnt car tires. The black smoke obstructed police officers' view. Water cannons were being used by police to put out flames. It was circa 8° C below zero in Kiev so water coming out of cannons promptly turned into ice. Ten protesters are said to have been taken to hospital over the past 24 hours.
The number of Ukrainian internal forces' servicemen injured in the course of clashes with protesters has reached 65, the Interior Ministry informs on its website. Earlier, there were reports about 57 wounded servicemen.
According to the Ministry, servicemen happened to have a range of traumas, including contusions, closed craniocerebral injuries, concussions, burns and bruising legs and arms. The injured are being treated at the Interior Ministry's hospital.
Kiev protesters seize Justice Ministry building after day of calm
Published time: January 27, 2014 01:58
Edited time: January 27, 2014 05:22
Anti-government protesters guard occupied building of the Ukrainian Justice Ministry in Kiev on early January 27, 2014. (AFP Photo/Sergei Gapon)
Protesters in Kiev seized the Justice Ministry building near Independence Square on Sunday, following a day of calm. It comes one day after rioters seiged a convention center in the capital where police were stationed.
Rioters seized the building on Sunday evening. “At 22:38 security in the building called in an attempted seizure of the building. Information was confirmed, the building remains seized,” police said, according to Unian news agency.
Local media reported that no one was hurt during the seizure of the building. Following the incident, activist group Common Cause claimed responsibility for the seizure, posting a message on their Facebook page.
Ukrainian Justice Minister Elena Lukash has said she will ask the National Security and Defense Council to introduce a state of emergency if rioters do not leave the ministry building.
"If the protesters do not leave the Justice Ministry building in half an hour I will ask the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine to impose the state of emergency,” she told Inter TV channel.
Lukash said the ministry building was captured just when the last amendments were being made to the law “On Changes to the Constitution of Ukraine” in order to return to the 2004 text of the constitution.
According to AFP, the group entered the building without any resistance and is currently building a system of barricades just outside the building. Common Cause is reportedly the same group that earlier occupied the Energy and Agricultural Ministries.
UDAR party leader Vitaly Klitschko entered the building, Interfax reported.
Sunday began with a ceasefire in Kiev as protesters reinforced barricades and mourned a deceased protester. Sunday demonstrations were called off to allow for the funeral procession, RT’s Alexey Yaroshevsky reported.
Several foreign diplomats - including European, US, and Canadian ambassadors - “inspected” Kiev’s Independence Square on Sunday and spoke to representatives of the radical Right Sector group, the press service of the opposition Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party said in a statement.
The diplomats are “convinced” that the protests in central Kiev are “not dangerous” and that protesters do not have “stockpiles of arms,” the report says. They also allegedly agreed that “beasts” and “armed gangs” were responsible for the violence, while protesters “are defending their rights and dignity.”
Officials arrived around the time of the memorial service for the deceased Independence Square protester. It is not clear whether the diplomats planned their arrival time accordingly.
Meanwhile, member of parliament for the ruling Party of Regions, Vadim Kolesnichenko, said that opposition leaders in Ukraine have no idea how to end the crisis. "Regrettably, last night in Kiev demonstrated that the opposition leaders are unable to fulfill the obligations they have undertaken," he told ITAR-TASS.
"Arseniy Yatsenyuk's [leader of the opposition Batkivshchina party] statement that he is ready to head the Ukrainian government to continue the European integration course looks treacherous after the turmoil the protesters staged at the Ukrainian House in European Square. It looks like the opposition leaders have neither any idea nor solutions how to get out of the current situation," Kolesnichenko added.
Overall, at least 311 police officers have been injured in the Kiev riots, 118 of whom have been hospitalized with head injuries, fractures, burns, and stab and slash wounds. Some have also been poisoned by “unknown substances,” the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said in a Sunday statement.
The ministry’s press service also informed Unian news agency that 116 people have been detained in connection with the mass riots in central Kiev and that a criminal investigation into “mass disorder” on Grushevskogo Street has been opened.
Several people who were previously convicted, including those who have been charged with especially grave crimes, are among the detained.
On Saturday evening, rioters stormed the Ukrainian House international convention center in Kiev. Around 200 riot police were inside the building at the time of the siege, all of whom managed to exit through a side window. Protesters threw small bombs and Molotov cocktails into the building. Police did not retaliate.
On the same day, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich offered top government posts to protest leaders and promised a review of the constitution - a move aimed at giving more power to parliament. Yanukovich proposed the post of prime minister to Batkivshina Party leader Arseny Yatsenyuk. Udar Party leader Vitaly Klitchko was offered the post of deputy prime minister for humanitarian affairs.
Despite the offers, no conclusion was reached and talks are set to continue on Tuesday.
Protests spreading beyond Kiev
The violence that started in Kiev has spread to the west of the country and to several cities across Ukraine. Protesters have been targeting government buildings in an attempt to occupy them.
On Sunday, hundreds of anti-government protesters besieged a city administration building in the southeastern city of Zaporozhye. Footage from the scene showed a large crowd of demonstrators facing off against a police line at the main entrance to the building. Riot police managed to regain control of the area.
Hundreds of protesters rallied near government buildings in the southern Ukrainian cities of Odessa and Dnepropetrovsk.
Demonstrators also occupied an administrative building in the northeastern city of Sumy, proclaiming “People’s Rada” – an alternative regional parliament. The seizure of the building was followed by an opposition rally which claimed to have gathered 5,000 people. All the protesters were later dispersed by police.
Orthodox clergymen, relatives and friends stand near the coffin of Mikhail Zhiznevsky, killed in unclear circumstances during anti-government protests. Photo: EPA
Thousands of Ukrainians chanted “Hero!” and sang the national anthem on Sunday, as a coffin carrying a protester who was killed in last week’s clashes with police was carried through the streets of the capital, underscoring the rising tensions in the country’s two-month political crisis.
Mikhail Zhiznevsky, 25, was one of three protesters who died in clashes on Wednesday.
“He could have been my fiancé, but he died defending my future so that I will live in a different Ukraine,” said Nina Uvarov, a 25-year-old student from Kiev who wept as Zhiznevsky’s body was carried out of St Michael’s Cathedral.
The opposition contends that Zhiznevsky and another activist were shot by police in an area where demonstrators had been throwing rocks and firebombs at riot police for several days. The government claims the two demonstrators were killed with hunting rifles, which they say police do not carry.
The authorities would not say how the third protester died.
"He could have been my fiancé, but he died defending my future so that I will live in a different Ukraine"
Mina Uvarov, student
Meanwhile, protests against President Viktor Yanukovych continued to engulf the country, and are now beginning to spread to central and eastern Ukraine, the leader’s support base.
In Dnipropetrovsk, 390 kilometres southeast of Kiev on the Dnipro River, several hundred demonstrators tried to storm a local administration building, but police drove them back with water sprayed from a fire truck in subzero temperatures, the Interfax news agency reported.
In Zaporozhets, about 70 kilometres downriver, demonstrators gathered outside the city administration building.
Meanwhile, in Kiev, protesters seized the Justice Ministry building on Sunday night, adding another government building to the several already occupied by the opposition. After bursting into the Justice Ministry, which is several hundred metres away from the main protest camp, protesters began erecting barricades. They also tore up a portrait of Yanukovych.
The protests began in late November after Yanukovych shelved a long-awaited agreement to deepen ties with the European Union, but they have been increasingly gripped by people seeking more radical action, even as moderate opposition leaders have pleaded for the violence to end.
Zhiznevsky’s body was then carried several hundred metres to Independence Square in central Kiev, where protesters have established a large tent camp and held demonstrations round the clock since early December. Crowds shouted “Yanukovych is a murderer!” and “Down with the criminal”, a reference to Yanukovych’s run-ins with the law during his youth.
The coffin was then carried to the site of Zhiznevsky’s death at barricades near the Ukrainian parliament.
A crowd late on Saturday besieged a building, throwing fireworks, firebombs and rocks, near the protest tent camp where about 200 police were sheltering. By early Sunday morning, a corridor was created, allowing police to leave.
On Sunday, activists were cleaning up the devastated Ukrainian House building, sweeping broken glass and furniture, but also the trash left there by police.
The overnight outburst came soon after opposition leaders issued a defiant response to Yanukovych’s offer to make Arseniy Yatsenyuk, one of their top figures, the country’s prime minister.
While not rejecting the offer outright, Yatsenyuk said more of the opposition’s demands must be met, including Yanukovych’s resignation. He vowed protests would continue.
About half of Ukraine’s people favoured deeper integration with the EU, according to polls, and many Ukrainians widely resent Russia’s long influence over the country.
Two women mourn during the funeral procession of protester Mikhail Zhiznevsky. Photo: EPA
In the past week, demonstrators have seized government administration buildings in a score of cities in western Ukraine, where Yanukovych’s support is weak and desire for European ties is strong.
Zhiznevsky was from Belarus, a neighbouring ex-Soviet country where hardline President Alexander Lukashenko has jailed and harassed his opponents. Vladimir Neklyaev, a Belarusian opposition leader, came to Kiev to bid farewell to Zhiznevsky.
“Ukraine is showing Belarus an example of how one should fight for freedom,” Neklyaev said. “I am sure that our countries have a common future in Europe, where neither Ukrainians nor Belarusians will die.”
Despite an offer to release activists and stop more prosecutions, the government continued a crackdown, with more than 40 detained in the central city of Cherkasy after a protest, according to prosecutors.
