Shots Ring Out in Kiev as Deadly Fighting Resumes
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Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images(KIEV, Ukraine) — Shots rang out in Kiev Thursday, a deadly escalation of violence in the Ukrainian capital one day after a ceasefire was issued.
According to ABC News producer Bruno Roeber, security forces fired live ammunition at protesters. Molotov cocktails were thrown at police.
Several protesters died in Thursday’s clashes, and medics used the lobby of one hotel as a makeshift hospital to tend to the wounded.
The foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland are reported to be meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in Kiev.
The European Union, meanwhile, will hold an emergency meeting in Brussels later Thursday to consider sanctions.
This latest wave of violence comes after Yanukovich announced on Wednesday a truce with opposition leaders and called for negotiations with protesters in an effort to prevent a civil war.
In a statement posted to his official website, Yanukovich said he met with opposition leaders and pledged to end the fighting.
The parties declared a truce and began “negotiations aimed at cessation of bloodshed and stabilization of the situation in the country for the sake of civil peace,” according to the statement.
The announcement came after two days of bloody clashes in Kiev that left more than two dozen people dead and nearly 300 injured.
Demonstrations in Ukraine began in late November after Yanukovich bowed to Russian pressure and pledged to join a Russia-led customs union, spurning the European Union in the process. Moscow also offered Ukraine billions of dollars in badly needed loans as the country faces default.
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