Ukrainian police break up pro-Europe protests

Ukrainian riot police used batons and stun grenades to disperse hundreds of pro-Europe protesters early on Saturday after a night of violence in Kiev following President Viktor Yanukovich’s decision not to sign a landmark pact with Europe.
Black-helmeted police moved in on protesters camped on the capital’s Independence Square, first firing grenades to disorient them and then wading in with batons, witnesses said.
Police units chased several protesters into side-streets.
A total of 35 people were detained for resisting police, the interior ministry said.
There were no hard figures for how many people may have been hurt though the opposition said there could be as many as a hundred.
“It was absolute savagery. By my count, we are talking of tens of cruelly beaten people perhaps hundreds,” an opposition deputy, Andriy Shevchenko, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
Tension had been building in Kiev since Friday, when Yanukovich declined to sign the pact with European Union leaders at a summit in Lithuania, going back on a pledge to work toward integrating his ex-Soviet republic into the European mainstream.
He said the cost of upgrading the economy to meet EU standards was too great and that economic dialogue with Russia, Ukraine’s former Soviet master, would be revived.
After the police action, about 200 demonstrators shifted the scene of their protest to St. Michael’s cathedral – formerly a 12th century monastery which was destroyed by Soviet authorities in 1937 and rebuilt after independence in 1991.
“We gathered here after riot police beat us and chased us out of the square. It’s the only safe place we could go to,” Roman Tsaldo, 25, said.
“Dozens of wounded, dozens of arrested,” opposition lawmaker Andriy Shevchenko said on Twitter. “Ukraine has not seen anything like this before.”
Ukraine’s political opposition has said that President Viktor Yanukovich had ‘stolen the dream’ of closer integration with Europe as his supporters hailed his decision to spurn a European Union free trade deal.
In a sea of blue and gold, the colours of both the EU and Ukrainian flags, some 10,000 protesters chanted “Ukraine is Europe” in Independence Square, the theatre of the Orange Revolution of 2004-5 that thwarted Yanukovich’s first presidential bid.
“Today they stole our dream, our dream of living in a normal country,” said heavyweight boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko, a contender for the 2015 presidential election.
“The failure to sign the agreement of association is treason,” he told the roaring crowd.
The US envoy to Ukraine condemned what he said was the use of violence against peaceful protesters after riot police brutally dispersed an opposition protest in central Kiev, reportedly wounding several dozen people.
“Still working to understand what happened, but obviously condemn the violence against peaceful demonstrators,” Geoffrey Pyatt said on Twitter. “Will have more to say.”