Police Offensive: Fronts Harden in Kiev Opposition Protests

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/protest-anger-in-kiev-will-not-dissipate-as-police-go-on-offensive-a-938232.html



Kiev police are destroying barricades erected by protesters as the sub-zero showdown continues. With the Klitschko brothers at the lead, demonstrators continue to clash with security personnel over the government's move away from EU cooperation.

Police Offensive: Fronts Harden in Kiev Opposition Protests
By Benjamin Bidder in Kiev
December 10, 2013 – 03:37 PM

The barricades in central Kiev are controlled by men in helmets and red vests. They are veterans the Soviets' ill-fated war in Afghanistan, and now they see themselves as the "guards of the square." They have closed breaches in the barriers that face Kiev's government district, from where they believe the feared special unit known as "Berkut," or Golden Eagle, will come storming out.

A few hundred meters away is Kiev's city administration building, which for two weeks has been occupied by protestors known as the "Staff of the Revolution," as they have somewhat boastfully spray-painted on the exterior walls. A mobile hospital would be more useful. In a ballroom supported by giant pillars, activists lie sprawled on the floor while nurses wearing Red Cross vests they sewed themselves rush back and forth between them. The revolutionaries of Kiev are tending to their wounds. Sergei is wearing a tracksuit and sporting designer stubble. He has been burned by one of the iron barrels the protestors make fires in to ward off the bitter cold, and he's rubbing his leg with snow.

The Kiev native is 27 and works as the coach of a handball team during the day, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. He wants to rid Ukraine of President Viktor Yanukovych and to replace him with a government that looks toward Europe rather than Russia. He has been coming onto the streets when he is not at work, from 3 p.m. to 8 a.m., for two weeks already. But the cold is wearing him and his comrades down.

Police have surrounded the demonstrators. On Monday, Interior Ministry troops and personnel from the Berkut dismantled barricades across Kiev, while five metro stations around Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, in the center of the city were closed, supposedly because of the threat of terrorists. In truth, however, it was to impede the influx of protestors.