Ukraine assault threatened to free captured policemen

Vitaliy Zakharchenko, the Interior Minister, also blamed protesters for a severe assault on another policeman and said the opposition was hoarding firearms at its Kiev headquarters.

The remarks fuelled fears that a fresh confrontation triggered by a government assault was imminent and came hours after the EU warned that the country could slip into civil war.

Accusing the mainstream opposition of failing to control radicals, Zakharchenko said the authorities now had information that the protesters were 'hoarding firearms' at city hall in central Kiev. The statement warned that police would storm the building if the two officers were not released. It said another officer who had been injured while being seized had been released and was hospitalised in serious condition.

He issued an ultimatum to release the men. 'If this is not fulfilled then the police will have to carry out measures to free those captured,' he said in a statement.

The city hall is only a few hundred meters from both the site of protracted clashes between police and protesters over the past week and Independence Square, where demonstrators have set up an extensive tent camp and conducted round-the-clock protests since early December.

He said that security forces locked in a standoff with protesters on Grushevsky Street in central Kiev for the last six days had held talks with opposition representatives overnight.

'The talks did not have any result. They (the opposition representatives) can no longer have any effect on the radical groups that are controlling seized buildings and directing the use of force,' he said.

The European Union urged concrete steps to end the crisis, which according to activists has already left five dead and risks spiralling into another bloody confrontation.

Overnight, demonstrators had hurled Molotov cocktails at police who responded with stun grenades and rubber bullets,

Stefan Fuele, the EU enlargement commissioner, met Viktor Yanukovytch, the Ukraine president, said he 'conveyed deep concerns of the EU about the latest developments and underlined the need to end the cycle of violence'.

He also stressed the need 'to fight against impunity of perpetrators of human rights violations and to continue an inclusive national dialogue to find a way out of the crisis that threatens to further destabilise the country'.

Chief among action that must be taken by the Ukrainian government is 'a series of concrete steps to first start to rebuild trust of people by stopping the spiral of violence and intimidation, to be complemented in a second stage by an inclusive political process leading (to) stability in Ukraine,' said Fuele.

'I have discussed a series of steps to this end, that could lead to confidence building and to a political process aimed at ending this crisis,' he added.