Sporadic nighttime clashes in Kiev, tension remains

Ukrainian protesters and security forces late on Tuesday engaged in sporadic clashes in the centre of Kiev but the situation was calmer than in the previous two evenings despite continued tensions.

Protesters occasionally lobbed stones and Molotov cocktails at lines of police, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades, an AFP correspondent reported.

However the sporadic clashes were far from the intensity seen in the two previous nights where fighting left hundreds injured.

A group of pro-protest Orthodox priests holding crosses stood in the “no-man’s land” between their barricades and the lines of police in an apparent bid to deter any attempt to storm the protest.

Police loudhailers had earlier repeated a message to the protesters offering them to leave their barricades in security.

The protesters were also warned that approaching within three metres (10 feet) of the police lines would be seen as an attempt on the life and health of the security forces.

Despite the relative calm, thousands of protesters remained around the area of the standoff on Grushevsky Street that leads to the Verkhovna Rada parliament.

The area echoed with the din of insistent drumming by protesters banging on metal objects.