#AceNewsDesk says meanwhile, the fire raging in the House of Trade Unions has apparently gone out, but the smoke keeps issuing from several charred floors.
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16:06 GMT:
The United States and the European Union are discussing the possibility of imposing sanctions on Ukraine “to try create conditions for compromise,” Reuters reports citing US Secretary of State John Kerry.
15:45 GMT:
Nearly 800 people have been injured in violent clashes in Kiev, including 392 law enforcement officers, the deputy chief investigator of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, Oleg Tatarov, told foreign ambassadors at a Wednesday meeting. He added that 83 of the injured officers have been hospitalized with serious gunshot wounds.
15:29 GMT:
The US imposed sanctions on Ukraine on Wednesday, having canceled visas for several officials, who supposedly were connected with the use of force in central Kiev, according to the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt.
15:29 GMT:
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski says he is heading to Ukraine on Wednesday on behalf of the European Union.
14:33 GMT:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the imminent threat of sanctions against the Ukrainian government was meant to show Kiev that the European Union is serious about the need for a return to political dialogue.
“When (EU) foreign ministers meet tomorrow in Brussels they must talk about which specific sanctions should be imposed to show we are serious that the political process must resume…,” she told a news conference with French leader Francois Hollande, adding that it was necessary to talk to both the opposition and Viktor Yanukovich’s government to help bring peace to Ukraine. (Reuters)
14:23 GMT:
The responsibility for the deadly riots in Ukraine lies not with extremists alone, but also with the leaders of the Ukrainian opposition and some Western politicians, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
14:12 GMT:
Rioters have captured and beaten the governor of the western Volyn Oblast, Aleksandr Bashkalenko, and are demanding that he resigns. According to reports in Ukrainian media, Bashkalenko was handcuffed to a stage in front of a crowd of about 10,000 people and was doused with cold water but refused to sign his resignation. Earlier, he was beaten for refusing to kneel before the people, but a group of organized rioters averted a lynching by the angry mob by taking the governor into a police station.
14:04 GMT:
Ukraine’s security service has announced it is launching a counter-terror operation, RIA Novosti reports. The service that said radicals have seized over 1,500 firing arms and 100,000 bullets in the last 24 hours.
13:56 GMT:
In the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, people are lighting candles to commemorate the victims of the deadly clashes in Kiev.
13:45 GMT:
Smoke is covering no man’s land between the crowd of protesters on Independence Square (Maidan) and the police cordons. Protesters are burning tires as riot police constantly regroup behind the lines of interior troops surrounding the square. A spurt of water can be seen firing in the direction of the barricades.
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