UKRAINE – A policeman has died and 100 people have been injured after a grenade was thrown from a crowd of protesters during violent clashes in Kiev this morning.
The blast, outside the city’s parliament buildings, knocked officers off their feet and witnesses reported seeing pools of blood on the ground near some of the wounded.
Dozens of police and members of the Ukrainian national guard have been injured in what started as a demonstration over a draft law to give special status to separatist regions.
Several people were seen bleeding and lying on the ground in front of the parliament building amid reports of ‘several’ explosions. One of the officers died from shrapnel wounds while ten more were left with serious injuries.
[…] It was worst unrest in Kiev since a bloody popular uprising ousted Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych early last year.
Interior ministry advisor Anton Gerashchenko said the guardsman who died was a conscript.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov initially said the officer, who is believed to be 24 or 25, died from a bullet wound to the heart but later wrote that he was apparently killed by a fragment of a grenade. (read more)