KIEV: Flames engulfed the main anti-government protest camp on Kiev's Independence Square on Tuesday as riot police tried to force demonstrators out following the bloodiest clashes in three months of protests.
The iconic square turned into a war zone as riot police moved slowly through opposition barricades from several directions, hurling stun grenades and using water cannon to clear protestors.
Demonstrators responded by throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks at security forces and set fire to tyres, sending up plumes of thick smoke into the night sky.
Around a quarter of the tents were on fire in the sprawling encampment, where protestors have been camped out demanding President Viktor Yanukovych leave power since he ditched a closer ties with the EU in favour of Russia.
Police had warned women and children through loudspeakers to leave the area as the assault began, saying that they were launching "an anti-terrorist" operation. But some 25,000 people remained on the square.
Exhorting the crowd from a stage in the square where protest leaders continued to speak as the assault was continuing, opposition leader Vitali Klitschko said that protestors "were not going anywhere".
"This a small island of freedom," the former heavyweight boxer said.
Klitschko added that Yanukovych had called him offering negotiations but had been told to first withdraw the riot police.
Police said that six police officers had been killed in Tuesday's clashes, with all of them dying from gunshot wounds.
Authorities and demonstrators said 5 civilians were also killed in the clashes, while two more were found dead with no exterior signs of violence.
Kiev was in essential lockdown as authorities halted the city's metro system and said they would limit road traffic coming into the capital from midnight (2200 GMT).
A leading opposition television station Kanal 5 said that its broadcasts had been blocked across the country, including its online transmission.
In a statement, influential oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man and the ruling party's main sponsor, condemned the violence.
"The loss of life on the side of both the protesters and the law enforcement agencies is an unacceptable price to pay for political mistakes that have been made," the tycoon said.
Meanwhile, around 500 protestors seized control of a regional administrative building and the police headquarters in the pro-EU western city of Lviv.
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