Up to 100 injured in clashes between security and nationalist protesters outside parliament in Kiev
Demonstrators have brawled and lobbed grenades outside Ukraine’s parliament, killing one officer from the interior ministry’s National Guard and injuring up to 100.
The violence was in protest against a parliamentary vote to grant concessions to territories held by Russian-backed rebels.
The interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said one officer died from shrapnel wounds and around 10 more were seriously injured. Most of the protesters appeared to come from Svoboda, a far-right political party that was part of the Maidan movement which overthrew the president Viktor Yanukovych last year but did badly at the polls and only has a handful of MPs
Kiev’s mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, called the unrest “a bloody provocation” and said those responsible should be brought to justice. It was the worst street violence in Kiev since the fatal crushing of the Maidan protests last year, which resulted in more than 100 deaths and the ousting of Yanukovych.
After the subsequent war in east Ukraine led to at least 7,000 deaths, Ukraine promised “special status” to the areas of the eastern Donbass region, which are under rebel control, as part of the Minsk ceasefire agreement. But the concessions are controversial at a time when many in Ukraine believe Moscow is doing little to hold up its side of the bargain.
Read more:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/31/blast-kiev-parliament-ukraine-mps-back-more-autonomy-for-rebels
