Your trusted source

Ukrainian protesters clashed with police in Kiev after at least 10,000 people took to Independence Square for an anti-government demonstration. Police retaliation with tear gas and water cannons was prompted by an attempt to storm the government quarter, RT reported.

What started as a peaceful demonstration on the city’s Independence Square, or Maidan, with heated anti-government slogans being shouted and the announcement that the opposition was creating a “people’s assembly,” turned into violent clashes with the police later Sunday.

Protesters wearing orange helmets and wielding sticks and flares clashed with cordons of security forces surrounding government buildings and attempted to turn over a police bus. According to police, radical activists were also throwing smoke grenades.

Live feeds showed riot police retaliating by throwing flash grenades from behind the cordon, as Twitter exploded with reports of Berkut special police forces readying to forcefully disperse the crowd and water cannon approaching the area.

As tension grew, media reports said police used teargas to push back the crowd.

Some of the protesters started breaking up the pavement, arming themselves with rubble.

The most aggressive group of protesters started throwing stones, debris and Molotovs directly at the police, with some of the petrol bombs landing in the midst of cordons and setting policemen’s uniform on fire.

At least 70 law enforcers have been injured in violent riots and 4 of them are in serious condition, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry spokesperson told Ria Novosti.