Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko defended today controversial legislation giving more autonomy to pro-Russian rebels that sparked deadly street battles in Kiev.
The unrest -- the worst in the Ukrainian capital since a bloody uprising in early 2014 -- has further exacerbated divisions in Poroshenko's ruling coalition, with nationalists deeply opposed to giving the separatists greater control over the country's war-ravaged east.
Three policeman died after being wounded by a grenade explosion near the parliament building, which the government blamed on an ultra-nationalist group.
The proposed reforms, which were given initial backing by MPs in a stormy session that set off Monday's violence, are a key part of a faltering Western-backed peace deal signed in February.
Poroshenko stressed support for the controversial reforms that nationalists have branded "un-Ukrainian," by effectively legalising the rebel seizure of the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
"More than 70 percent of Ukrainians support constitutional changes on decentralisation and as Ukraine's president, I will be with the Ukrainian people," he said.
Poroshenko has described the violence as a "stab in the back" and warned the culprits would face "severe punishment".
Two of the policemen died Tuesday after the clashes outside parliament, with around 140 people -- most of them police -- treated in hospital.
The chaotic scenes with swirling black smoke, and riot police confronting baseball bat-wielding protesters carried echoes of the worst clashes of the Maidan uprising that ousted president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.
His ouster unleashed a separatist insurgency in the industrial east that has killed more than 6,800 people.
Political analysts said the Kiev clashes underscored weaknesses in Poroshenko's coalition.
"The president ended up in a difficult situation," Vadym Karasyov, head of the Institute of Global Strategies in Kiev, told AFP.
The right-wing Radical Party quit the ruling coalition today in protest at the legislation.
