Supporters of European integration rest on Monday in Kiev’s city hall, which they occupied during a protest against the government’s decision to delay signing a trade deal with the EU. Photo: CFP

 

Ukrainian protesters declared a general strike and blockaded government buildings Monday after violent clashes in which more than 100,000 sought early elections over the authorities' rejection of a historic EU pact.

Nearly 10,000 supporters of the ex-Soviet state's alliance with the EU and disavowal of old master Russia camped out overnight on Kiev's iconic Independence Square in a bid to keep alive Ukraine's biggest pro-democracy protest since the 2004 Orange Revolution.

Thousands then moved toward government and state administration buildings calling for President Viktor Yanukovych's immediate ouster and a nationwide strike.

The crowd had first defied a ban on protests on Sunday by driving lines of helmeted police off the same square that provided the setting for the 2004 revolt.

Some of the more militant in the group also steered a bulldozer within striking distance of barricades protecting the Yanukovych administration building.

Security forces outside the president's seat of power fired dozens of stun grenades and smoke bombs at masked demonstrators who were pelting police with stones and Molotov cocktails.

Kiev's city government said in an update Monday that 165 police officers and demonstrators had been injured.

The economically struggling nation was thrown into crisis when Yanukovych snubbed EU leaders at a summit on Friday and refused a deal that would have paved Ukraine's way to eventual membership in the 28-nation bloc.

EU leaders primarily blamed the decision on the punitive economic punishments Russia had mooted should Ukraine take the step toward the West.

Ukrainian officials were dealt more embarrassment Monday when members of the nationalist Svoboda party held on to their control of Kiev city hall after storming the empty building late Sunday.

"A revolution is starting in Ukraine," Svoboda party chief Oleh Tyahnybok declared.

"We are launching a national strike," he said in a call supported by other opposition leaders.

Local authorities in several western cities had either joined calls for a general walkout or had simply refused to show up at work.

Ivano-Frankivsk city mayor Viktor Anushkevichus said in a statement that he and his deputies were taking an unpaid leave of absence "in solidarity with the strikers."

City officials in Lviv also issued a statement supporting the action.

AFP