By ANDREW E. KRAMER and ANDREW HIGGINS
New York Times
FEB. 20, 2014
Kiev Ukraine. A new, deeper spiral of violence occurred on Thursday as both protesters and riot police used fire arms in the deadliest day so far. Fear that President Viktor F. Yanukovych would declare a state of emergency intensified. This move could cause the military to be deployed. The former Soviet republic of 46 million hurtled toward a dangerous new phase in a three-month political crisis after a truce announced overnight by Mr. Yanukovych and opposition leaders collapsed amid accusations of treachery on both sides. The Kiev municipal health authorities said that 39 people had been killed on Thursday, bringing the total number of dead in three days of mayhem to at least 67 people. There has been unconfirmed statements stating that 70 protesters in Kiev had been killed and hundreds wounded by gunfire in a confrontation with the police. Either number of deaths would still be known as the deadliest day of the conflict to date. It looked unlikely that Mr. Yanukovych could restore his battered authority and regain control of the capital. The only thing that was entirely clear by Thursday afternoon was that protesters had reclaimed and even expanded territory in the center of Kiev that they had lost just two days earlier. They had lost this land when the police launched a bloody, unsuccessful assault on the independents square, the center of protests since late November. People from the anti-Yanukovych western part of the country were climbing on to buses to travel to Kiev in support of the protesters. As many as 600 were leaving the city of Lviv every day.
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