Demonstrators in Ukraine’s capital city have escalated their battles with police after pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych tightened laws against public gatherings. The unrest, which started peacefully, began when Yanukovych decided to “spurn a planned trade deal with the European Union and turn toward Russia instead,” CNN reports. Now hundreds of protesters and police officers have been injured in clashes that lasted through the weekend.
The protesters, dozens of whom have been arrested, were recently barred from wearing masks and helmets or setting up equipment without permission. Needless to say, they are not listening. In the video below, demonstrators assemble a force-field using Porta Potties:
And a DIY catapult:
President Yanukovych said in a statement, “now, when peaceful actions are turning into mass unrest, accompanied by riots and arson attacks, the use of violence, I am convinced that such phenomena are a threat not only to Kiev but to the whole of Ukraine.”
On the other side is former heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko, now a leader among the protesters in Kiev’s Independence Square, who has worked to ease tensions. “It is vital that these negotiations bring real results, because they are the only way to get out of the conflict without its escalation,” he said in a statement.
The photos coming out of the struggle are phenomenal, and only getting wilder, as one opposition leader told the New York Times, “The siege of the government quarter will only intensify.”
