Anti-government protest in downtown Kiev escalates
An anti-government demonstration in downtown Kiev escalated in scuffles on Wednesday afternoon, with 1,000 people already taking part in the event, TASS reported.
The clashes between National Guard troops, deployed near the central metro station Arsenalnaya, and the participants of a nationalist demonstration erupted after police had arrested several protesters.
Protesters are throwing Molotov cocktails at the building of the Prosecutor-General’s Office, saying that his just a "warning signal."
Major police and National Guard forces have been deployed to the centre of the city.
The disorder has engulfed Kiev’s Borispol airport where a group of Ukrainian paramilitaries, calling themselves the Battalion Brotherhood, threaten to suspend air links with the EU countries.
Dozens of people have been gathering near the key airport.
"The purpose of the rally is to demonstrate the military may easily upset air links with the EU countries, if their commanders fail to realize that support for Ukraine’s current authorities is criminal," the Ukrainski Noviny news portal quotes one of the demonstrators as saying.
Ukraine’s first ever strike by employees of the state-run transport enterprise has been announced at the airport.