Advertisement

Ukrainian Protester's Grenade Kills Policeman

A Ukrainian national guardsman has died after grenades were thrown during a protest outside parliament, according to the country's interior ministry.

Clashes broke out between security services and nationalist protesters outside the building in Kiev following a controversial vote to grant increased powers to separatist regions in the east.

President Petro Poroshenko is due to address the nation later on Monday, while Vitali Klitschko, mayor of Kiev, described the unrest as a "bloody provocation" and called for the attackers to be prosecuted.

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, earlier said the National Guardsman had died of a gunshot wound to the heart.

However, he later corrected this, saying he "died of splinters from grenades, not a gunshot wound".

The ministry said that nearly 90 national guardsmen were injured.

Mr Avakov wrote on Twitter that four have serious injuries to the eyes, stomach, neck and legs from a number of explosive devices that were thrown at them.

None of the approximately 100 protesters, most of whom were reported to be members of the nationalist party Svoboda, are believed to have been hurt.

Mr Avakov said around 30 people have been detained, including the person who threw the grenade.

He blamed the clashes on Svoboda, but the party said the government was at fault, claiming it "provoked Ukrainians to protest" by putting forward a bill that is tantamount to "capitulation to the Kremlin".

Transferring more powers to separatist regions in the east was a condition of a truce signed in February aimed at ending the conflict between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists that has left more than 6,800 dead.

Maksim Burbak, a member of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk's Popular Front Party, said: "This (the bill) will give our Western partners the ability to put pressure on Russia to fulfil three basic points of the Minsk agreement - the ceasefire, withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine and re-establishment of control over the border."

But some Ukrainians are against changing the constitution, claiming doing so would threaten the country's sovereignty and independence.

On Monday, 265 deputies in the 450-seat parliament gave preliminary approval to the changes proposed by Mr Poroshenko.

Three parties that are members of the majority coalition voted against the transfer of powers however.

Former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of one of those parties, said the changes were "not a road to peace and not a road to decentralisation".

"This is the diametrically opposite process, which will lead to the loss of new territories," she said.

Parliament speaker Vladimir Groisman rejected the charge that the changes would lead to the loss of the Donetsk region, one of the areas that has seen heavy fighting.

"There is no hint of federalism. Ukraine was, is and will be a unified state," he said.

The final vote will be held during parliament's autumn session, which starts on Thursday, although a specific date has not been set.