Ukraine's bloodiest day: dozens dead /// 77 killed on the streets of Kiev
"What is happening right now in Ukraine is criminal and anti-human," said Dr Olga Bogomolets, a professor of medicine. "All the people killed here had no guns or arms."
The conflict over Ukraine's future escalated on Thursday into the bloodiest day of violence since protests began, as the opposition routed thousands of riot police to regain control of central Kiev amid signs that the power base of embattled president Viktor Yanukovych was under threat.
Dozens died and hundreds were injured in a day of dramatic violence that turned into a seesaw contest and saw thousands of riot police scuttling from territory they seized on Tuesday. The day ended with thousands of Kiev residents patiently building city centre barricades in the cold and the dark.
Police deployed snipers and used live ammunition in a menacing escalation of the violence.
Guardian reporters saw 21 corpses on Independence Square, the crucible of the mass rebellion against Yanukovych, and in a nearby hotel converted into a makeshift field hospital. But the full death toll was impossible to verify: Oleh Musiy, head doctor for the opposition movement, said 70 protesters died on Thursday, bringing the death toll in 72 hours to about 100. The health ministry said 67 people had been killed and 562 wounded since Tuesday. The interior ministry said three police were killed on Thursday .
As Moscow encouraged Yanukovych to crack down harder on the unrest and threatened to withhold crucial financial aid unless he did, and the European Union announced limited sanctions on individual Ukrainian officials, three EU foreign ministers spent almost five hours with the president, desperately seeking a way back from the brink through a compromise between his increasingly hardline regime and opposition leaders.
That would include the key opposition demand for early presidential elections, something Yanukovych has shown no sign of conceding since the trouble erupted in November.
They spoke of "possible signs of progress" after seeing the president. But Thursday's escalation occurred within hours of Yanukovych calling a truce in the dangerous spiral of violence that is also spreading beyond Kiev, splitting the country east to west, and raising fears of Ukrainian meltdown.
The White House said Joe Biden, the vice-president, spoke to Viktor Yanukovych on Thursday by telephone and warned him that the US was preparing to sanction officials responsible for the violence.
