Five dead as Ukraine police launch assault on protesters

Ukrainian police today stormed protesters' barricades in Kiev amid violent clashes that left five activists dead, the first fatalities in two months of anti-government protests.
Pitched battles raged in the centre of the Ukrainian capital as protesters hurled stones and Molotov cocktails at police and the security forces responded with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets.
The opposition movement's medical service said that five of its activists had been killed and four of them reported found with gunshot wounds. Prosecutors have so far confirmed two deaths.
The bloody clashes marked a new peak in tensions after two months of protests over the government's failure to sign a deal for closer integration with the European Union under Russian pressure.

The epicentre of the clashes was Grushevsky Street in the city centre which has been the scene of three days of street battles between thousands of protesters and similar numbers of security forces.
Using tear gas and stun grenades, police initially pushed demonstrators back well beyond their initial lines by marching forward in military formation.

But the protesters then regrouped, creating a semi-circle of new barricades out of burning black tires whose rancid smoke filled the skies above Kiev and flames burned in near-apocalyptic scenes.
Police for the first time started moving an armoured personnel carrier towards the protesters after storming the barricades.

The security forces then used water cannon in a bid to douse the fires, but this only had the effect of causing even more smoke.
Meanwhile tens of thousands thousands today evening filled Independence Square in Kiev which was the main protest hub for the last two months, hoping their sheer numbers would deter further action.