1310 GMT: More from AFP correspondents in Berlin on German Chancellor Angela Merkel urging Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych to accept EU help in opposition talks.
“She sharply condemned the latest escalation,” said Merkel’s spokesman, adding that the chancellor also “urgently” advised the president to accept the EU’s offer of crisis mediation.
1305 GMT: Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain has been summoned to the UK Foreign Office over ‘shocking’ violence, the department announces on its official Twitter account @foreignoffice.
1255 GMT: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych to accept EU help in opposition talks, AFP correspondents in Berlin report.
1238 GMT: A reminder that AFP reporters say they saw the bodies of at least 25 protesters with apparent gunshot wounds around two popular Independence Square hotels and lying outside the central Kiev post office this morning.
Ukraine’s interior ministry says two policeman died from gunshot wounds sustained in the clashes and advised Kiev residents to stay indoors “because the streets of Kiev are occupied by armed and aggressive people”.
1225 GMT: A reminder that Ukraine’s crisis was initially ignited by President Viktor Yanukovych’s shock decision in November to ditch an historic European Union trade and political association agreement in favour of closer ties with Kiev’s historic masters in the Kremlin.
It has since evolved into a much broader anti-government movement that has swept through both the pro-Western west of the country as well as parts of its more Russified east and exposed the deep historical fault lines between the two.
1220 GMT: The deaths in Kiev this morning bring to at least 54 the number of people killed in Ukraine since the start of the week, according to health ministry and AFP counts.
1210 GMT: More on the resignation today of Kiev’s mayor – Volodymyr Makeyenko has quit President Viktor Yanukovych’s ruling Regions Party in protest over the “bloodshed” that has claimed dozens of lives in the Ukrainian capital.
“The events happening in the Ukrainian capital are a tragedy,” Makeyenko said in a statement. “I have decided to resign from the Regions Party and assume personal responsibility for the livelihood of the city of Kiev.”
1158 GMT: More detail on the comments from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov – he has accused Ukrainian “extremists and hardliners” of seeking to spark a civil war.
Moscow supports negotiations between Ukranian authorities and the opposition, so they can try to overcome “this crisis and together fight extremists and hardliners who are trying to provoke a civil war,” Lavrov says at news conference in Baghdad, in remarks translated from Russian into Arabic.
1153 GMT: Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Ukraine’s opposition hardliners want civil war, AFP correspondents report.
1150 GMT: Kiev’s mayor has resigned from the ruling party in protest over ‘bloodshed’, AFP correspondents report.
1145 GMT: Ukraine’s interior ministry advises Kiev residents not to venture outdoors after fresh clashes between protesters and riot police.
“It is best to currently limit your use of motor vehicles or to simply stay indoors,” the ministry in charge of Ukraine’s vast police force said in a statement.
“These security measures are necessary because the streets of Kiev are occupied by armed and aggressive people.”
1135 GMT: Ukrainian police have told Kiev residents not to go outside, AFP correspondents report.
1125 GMT: A summary of the latest on clashes in Kiev’s Independence Square this morning:
– armed protesters have stormed police barricades in renewed violence that killed at least 26 people, shattering an hours-old truce as EU envoys hold crisis talks with Ukraine’s embattled president
– bodies of anti-government demonstrators lie amid smouldering debris after masked protesters hurling Molotov cocktails and stones forced police from the capital’s iconic Independence Square
– retreating police unleashed a hail of rubber bullets on protesters as plumes of acrid smoke billowed into the air amid the explosions of stun grenades
– the lobby of the Ukraina hotel overlooking the square has been turned into an impromptu morgue, with the bodies of seven dead protesters lying side by side under white sheets on the marble floor in front of the reception desk
– an AFP photographer sees spent live cartridge shells littering the ground on the square. It was unclear who had used the ammunition
1110 GMT: Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev insists that Ukraine must “protect its people, protect its security structures… Only in that case can we develop full economic cooperation.”
Russia will “try to do everything to fulfil the promises that were given,” the prime minister says in televised remarks.
His comments apparently refer to the $15 bailout deal secured by President Viktor Yanukovych in December soon after he scrapped an agreement with the European Union in favour of closer ties with Russia.
Russia has so far released the first $3 billion tranche of the money. On Monday, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov pledged $2 billion more in aid “this week.”
1054 GMT: A Ukrainian alpine skier and her coach have pulled out of the Winter Olympics in Sochi in protest at the authorities’ deadly use of force against the protests in Kiev, they say.
Bogdana Matsotska and her coach Oleg Matsotskiy, who is also her father, said they were “outraged” by the refusal of President Viktor Yanukovych to favour dialogue over force.
“In a sign of protest… against the bandit-like actions against protesters, we are taking no further part in the Sochi Olympics in 2014,” Oleg Matsotskiy wrote on his Facebook page in a statement in the name of himself and his daughter.
They are the first members of the Ukrainian team confirmed to have pulled out of Sochi 2014 over the deadly violence.
1050 GMT: Russia, which was due to release two billion dollars in aid to Ukraine this week, wants a strong government in Kiev, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev tells his cabinet.
“We need partners who are in good shape and for the authorities that work in Ukraine to be legitimate and effective, so that people don’t wipe their feet on the authorities like a doormat,” Medvedev said in televised remarks.
1045 GMT: Ukraine’s three main opposition leaders have called fresh violence that has claimed the lives of at least 25 protesters “a provocation” by the pro-Russian government of President Viktor Yanukovych.
“The resumption of clashes on the Maidan (Independence Square) at a time when a truce was called is a planned provocation by the authorities against peaceful protesters,” said a statement posted on the website of boxer turned opposition leader Vitali Klitschko.
1034 GMT: The bodies of eight demonstrators are lying outside Kiev’s main post office on Independence Square, an AFP reporter says.
The bodies of 17 other demonstrators with apparent gunshot wounds can also be seen in the vicinity of two hotels on opposite sides of the protest encampment.
WELCOME TO AFP’S LIVE REPORT on deadly clashes between armed protesters and riot police in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, as the country’s embattled president holds urgent talks with EU foreign ministers on the raging crisis.
At least 25 protesters were killed on Thursday in fresh clashes between thousands of demonstrators and heavily-armed riot police.
The violence flared when masked protesters pelted Molotov cocktails and rocks at thick lines of armed police in Kiev’s central Independence Square, the epicentre of the ex-Soviet country’s three-month-old political crisis.
Stay with us for updates as events unfold.