Ukraine Aflame

"Hundreds passed through here last night. Wounds to the head, wounds to the legs, wounds to the sexual organs. I saw more than one person lose an eye."
"We picked plastic shrapnel from stun grenades from people's legs; we saw serious injuries from nails and other shrapnel wrapped around those grenades."
"We saw concussions and facial burns where police threw grenades straight at people's heads. There were head traumas and bruises from truncheons. And then there are the bullets."
Dr. Anatoly Daniluk, Kyiv

"Yes we have a figure. No, I am not going to tell you. All I can tell you is it was horrible."
Un-named medical professional, Kyiv

BBC News

First they were only rumours that police snipers using live rounds from silenced sniper rifles or Kalashnikovs were targeting protesters. And then those rumours were confirmed through images on social media. There was also spent cartridge casings from Kakarov pistols, a Soviet-designed handgun, and Kalashnikovs. And there were 12-bore shotgun shells, nine-millimetre brass cartridge casings littering the ground close by the fighting.

Ah, says the government, protesters have also been using handguns to shoot at police. Several have died. Even the opposition made claims that a few of those killed were struck by conventional bullets. Dr. Daniluk thought otherwise: "I can't say I saw that, and I'm a military doctor -- I'd have known if I was dealing with a rifle wound. But I have removed a lot of bullets -- 12-bore rubber bullets and smaller rubber pellets."

"People are terrified of going to state-run hospitals. If it is a relatively light injury, we try to treat it ourselves. But if it is really serious, they have to go straight to specialist centres", confided the doctor. And state-run hospitals are very good medical centres in Ukraine. It isn't the quality of care to be had there that terrifies the protesters, it's the fact that abductions of activists have occurred; they've been tortured, discovered dead afterward. So, no thank you.

Last night President Viktor Yanukovych signed yet another agreement with the Opposition leaders. Hoping to clear protesters out of government buildings. Offering to give clemency to those arrested. Claiming that a vote will take place. That a new government and a new constitution is in the works. But he won't step down, why should he, when so many Ukrainians trust and honour him. They insist he clear out the protesters and restore calm and order.

BBC News

Of course the protests and the accompanying violence have gone far beyond Kyiv to embrace other parts of the country and there too police have been stoned, barricades put up, protesters refuse to leave public squares and demands for the president's removal echo those of Kyiv. The latest agreement has not resulted in a clearing of Independence Square, nor the abandonment of government buildings to the authorities.

"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. Courtrooms are being burned down, vandals are destroying private apartments, killing peaceful citizens." There is "a growing escalation of violent confrontation and widespread use of weapons by extremist[oriented groups", warned Oleksandr Yakimenko, head of the country's state security service, the SBU.

BBC News

"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", he said. Echoes of the Syrian regime. Who might have imagined that in a European capital a government would mount a defence against protests to unleash action against "terrorists", setting up sharpshooters on the roofs of buildings overlooking the occupied square?

Who might have imagined mountainous barricades constructed of burning tires, of dozens of police taken hostage by protesters who insist their country will not return to the Russian sphere of influence, but move toward the European Union for comfort, security and economic advancement?