Fighting in Kiev Has Stopped, But Everyone's Still Pissed Off

A man launches a firework towards police in Kiev on Wednesday. Things have calmed down a bit since then.

Yesterday, after five days of violence, clashes in central Kiev finally came to a standstill. Since Sunday, activists and riot police had been fighting on Hrushevskoho Street after a protest against the government's new anti-protest law turned into an all-out brawl.

Demonstrators hurled petrol bombs and fireworks at cops, who responded with volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets, until one of the opposition leaders – former professional boxer Vitali Klitschko – brokered a ceasefire that held throughout the day and into this morning.

Hundreds of protesters and police have been injured and up to five protesters have been killed, two of those as a result of bullet wounds.

Yesterday, the NSFW footage above was uploaded to YouTube, but it's unclear when it was recorded. For anyone at work – or for those of you who don't like watching distressing stuff – the video shows Ukrainian police using humiliation tactics against the protesters, stripping a man in the freezing cold and making him pose for the cameras, before kicking him in the leg.

In an effort to defend themselves from further violence, protesters have taken the DIY self-preservation route. Some are walking around in homemade armour, strapping planks of wood and sheets of plastic to their limbs to protect them from police batons; others have crafted shields out of car doors, snowboards and pieces of steel; new barricades have been erected to stop the police from getting through; and a few people are wearing chain mail.

I'm pretty certain the cops aren't going to unleash any battle-axes on Independence Square, but – with the past few days in mind – it's no surprise that people are gearing up for it anyway. In another nod to Medieval weaponry, protesters have also constructed several catapults at the front-line barricades, preparing hundreds of petrol bombs to rain liquid fire onto the police.

The barricades themselves are made out of tires, rocks, bags of snow, bags of rocks, planks of wood and even burnt-out buses that had been used to ferry riot cops into the heart of the action. So basically anything people can get their hands on.

While others had crafted weapons out of planks of wood or managed to get their hands on police batons, this guy was wandering around with a dismembered mannequin leg. I didn't see him use it, but I can't imagine there's a much more humiliating situation as a riot cop than having a fibreglass toe find its way under your helmet.

Vitali Klitschko addresses the crowd

On Thursday, opposition leaders Vitali Klitschko from UDAR, Oleh Tyahnybok of Svoboda – the far-right party – and Arseniy Yatsenyuk of the Fatherland Party met with President Viktor Yanukovych to find a way to halt the violence and bring an end to the stand-off.

After four hours of negotiation, Klitschko and Tyahnybok came down to the barricades to tell the thousands gathered that they weren't able to come to an agreement, and called for the ceasefire to continue. Boos and shouts of "shame" and "revolution" quickly followed.

The "Euromaidan" movement is united in its hatred for Yanukovych and his government, and not for the love of the opposition parties. People want change now, and so far all they’re getting is fruitless negotiations and an uneasy stand off – which may well explain why those taking part in the violence aren’t being viewed as pariahs by others. In fact, there seems to be a fairly high level of support for those ratcheting things up a notch with fireworks and petrol bombs.

Photographs of the deceased. At the top is Serhiy Nihoyan, a 20-year old man found dead in the snow on Wednesday morning.

This protest is no longer just about entering Europe; years of corruption and poor economic growth have come to a head, and people are angry.

Like the Brazilian uprising – which started with people angry about the price of bus tickets – or Turkey’s wave of unrest – which began with an attempt to save a park – the Ukraine's pro-EU protests have broadened towards a more generalised disaffection. Since my last visit, there's been an obvious decrease in the number of people waving the EU flag, and everyone you speak to is now far more interested in toppling the government than any kind of trade agreement with Europe.

A lookout post in the square

The unrest is spreading beyond Kiev. Elsewhere, protesters forced the resignation of the regional governor in the western city of Lviv, and in Rivne – a city in the northwest of the country – crowds fought with police and invaded the regional administration building.

It's difficult to see what will happen next. The situation around the barricades is peaceful at the time of writing, but thousands remain here, angry at the deaths of protesters and eager to seek retribution for those who have been beaten, tortured and humiliated by police.

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