Ukraine faces more violence as ultimatum nears end

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-EXCITE

By YURAS KARMANAU and LAURA MILLS

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Protesters in Ukraine's capital extinguished burning barricades shielding them from the police on Thursday, enforcing a tenuous peace as an ultimatum issued by the opposition to the president was set to expire with no sign of compromise.

The fragile truce came after three main opposition leaders urged protesters late Wednesday to refrain from violence for 24 hours until their ultimatum to President Viktor Yanukovych expired. They demanded that he dismiss the government, call early elections, and scrap harsh anti-protest legislation that triggered violence at a demonstration on Sunday.

Opposition leader Vitali Klitschko dove behind the wall of black smoke engulfing much of downtown Kiev on Thursday, pleading with both police and protesters to uphold the peace until the ultimatum expires Thursday evening.

At Klitschko's request, protesters extinguished the burning tires that sent thick clouds of putrid smoke toward police lines.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140123/DABGGRU82.html

---

Protesters throw rocks at police in central Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014. City health officials and police said that two people died of gunshot wounds during the clashes Wednesday morning. But the opposition charges that as many as five people have died. The mass protests in the capital of Kiev erupted after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych spurned a pact with the European Union in favor of close ties with Russia, which offered him a $15 billion bailout. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

[VWolf]

1. This

will not end well.

[pampango]

2. "The kidnapping of Mr. Lutsenko, and Mr. Verbytsky, who was later found dead, was part of a chilling

pattern of abductions and assaults against opposition figures."

Cease-Fire in Kiev as Opposition Leaders Meet With President

After another night of clashes, protesters battling the police in the Ukrainian capital agreed to a temporary cease-fire on Thursday as opposition leaders planned to attend a second round of negotiations with President Viktor F. Yanukovich.

On Wednesday, however, after the fruitless initial round of talks with Mr. Yanukovich and other senior officials, the leaders said they were prepared to embrace the violent uprising. They issued an ultimatum, demanding a concession from Mr. Yanukovich within 24 hours. “Tomorrow we will go forward together,” Mr. Yatsenyuk said. “If there will be a bullet in the forehead, so be it. It will be an honest, just and brave action.”

The Interior Ministry on Thursday also confirmed the death of an opposition activist, Yuriy Verbytsky, who was kidnapped earlier this week, along with an opposition leader, Igor Lutsenko, from a hospital in Kiev.

Mr. Lutsenko was released by his captors in woods on the outskirts of Kiev, and has written on Facebook page that he was held in a shed-like building and at various points believed he was going to be killed. At one point, he said, he was forced to kneel with a bag over his head and told to pray. His captors inexplicably vanished and he fled through the woods.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/world/europe/ukraine.html?_r=0