UKRAINIAN SECURITY FORCES have moved away from the Kiev city hall after a failed bid to retake the building from some 200 opposition activists who have occupied it for over a week, an AFP correspondent reports.
The buses of the Berkut anti-riot police drove away from the building after failing to storm it due to the sheer number of demonstrators and after they were hosed with freezing water by activists inside.
Riot police officers during a clash with pro-European Union activists near the city hall entrance in Kiev, Ukraine. Pic: AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
Police used truncheons outside the building to beat protestors, who responded with sticks.
Meanwhile, demonstrators inside the building sprayed police on the street with freezing water from a fire hose, forcing them to retreat into police buses.
Amid an increasingly tense standoff, thousands of protesters came to picket the city hall where deputies from the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) movement held negotiations with the security forces over their next course of action.
Pro-European Union activists take away police shields from a police bus during a clash with riot police officers. Pic: AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
The members of the security forces remained holed up in their buses parked outside the front entrance surrounded by protesters and it was not clear if they would be able to launch a new bid to assault the building.
Meanwhile activists proudly waved flags of the Svoboda party and Ukraine from the upper floors to show that they remained in control of the building. Those on the ground chanted the main slogans of the protest movement, such as “Out with the gang!”.
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