EU SAGA: Blood shed in KIEV as Protesters, police battle on Bankova Street

 2 p.m. on Dec. 1, as a peaceful demonstration was taking place on Independence Square blocks away, hundreds of radical demonstrators, many outfitted with armor and gas masks, marched on Bankova Street toward the Presidential Administration building. Some brought with them crowbars, chains, clubs and gas canisters. Stones, which they didn’t bring, they pulled up from the cobbled sidewalks. A man driving a front loader accompanied them. They were ready for battle.

The rowdy mob was met by a steel barricade and a wall of heavily armored special riot police.

Tensions escalated quickly when the rowdy group, chanting “Death to enemies!” “Convict out!” “Bandits out!” attempted to break through police barricades using the front loader. Police responded with flash grenades and tear gas, eventually pushing protesters back.


Around 4 p.m. protesters and police forces exchanged blows. Stun grenades flashed all around and successively, tear gas filled the street and those who weren’t wearing protective masks retreated to Institutka Street some 100 meters back. In the calm between clashes, a protester walked through the crowd holding up a helmet with a broken visor that he had seized, inciting loud cheers from the others. It continued like this for nearly an hour before police finally – indiscriminately and brutally – were able to disperse the demonstrators.

Even as they fled, police chased down and beat protesters, including those not involved in the attacks on police. Video filmed by Channel 5 shows numerous members of the special police force beating with batons the protesters, some of which had already been knocked down.

In all, dozens of people were carried to a nearby makeshift medical center with scrapes and chemical burns while those with more serious injuries were taken away by ambulance. The Kyiv Post witnessed at least three protesters with bloody head wounds and many more gasping for breath on the street between gas attacks by police.According to media reports, at least 30 journalists were wounded in the clashes,