An anti-government rioter stands in front of burning vehicles at the Security Service building in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on February 18, 2014. (AFP Photo / Yuriy Dyachychyn)
An American diplomat has said that “the USA holds Yanukovich responsible” for the escalation of crisis in the country. Russia believes that this kind of stance actually encourages radicals on the streets of Kiev to provoke violence.
"From this moment on, the USA holds Yanukovich responsible for everything that happens in Ukraine," US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt told the Zerkalo Nedeli newspaper. The comment came after diplomats in Ukraine met with Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara.
Moscow believes that this accusatory position of the US could have, in fact, contributed to the escalation of violence Kiev has been witnessing, and, holding the president solely responsible for the crisis, is giving carte blanche to extremist radical forces out on the streets.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has issued a statement saying it considers the crisis “a direct result of the permissiveness policy exercised by those western politicians and European structures, who from the very beginning turned a blind eye to the aggressive actions of the radical forces in Ukraine.”
Twenty-five people were killed overnight in the most violent clashes yet to have occurred between security forces and protesters since the opposition took to the streets of Kiev in November 2013. Nine of the casualties are Ukrainian police officers, who died of gunshot wounds, as did the rest of the victims, the Interior Ministry reported.
Two hundred and forty-one people were wounded, the Ukrainian Health Ministry said. Among those hospitalized are 79 security services employees, five journalists, three children, as well as MP Vasily Pazinyak for the Batkivshchina (Motherland) party.
The ministry also officially confirmed that a journalist from the local ‘Vesti’ newspaper, Vyacheslav Veremey, died in Kiev after a gunshot wound.
The Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior believes the casualties in the clashes could have been killed by the radicals, because the police do not use fire arms.
"Taking into consideration the nature of the dead civilians’ wounds and also the nature of the weapons, which have been confiscated, we can assume that these wounds were inflicted by violent protesters,” a statement at the Ministry’s website says. “Police officers and interior troops do not use fire arms. Law enforcers are only using non-lethal weapons.”
During a phone call to Viktor Yanukovich, US Vice-President Joe Biden expressed “grave concern” at the surge of violence in the Ukrainian capital. Biden urged Yanukovich to exercise maximum restraint and pull back law enforcement confronting the rioters in downtown Kiev.
The US State Department meanwhile issued a travel advisory on Tuesday for American citizens in Ukraine.
"The situation in Ukraine is unpredictable and could change quickly. Further violent clashes between police and protesters in Kiev and other cities are possible," the alert says.
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