25 people have died in central Kiev

According to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Public Health, as of 6 a.m. on February 19, in the course of “Berkut’s” assault of Maidan 25 people died, 9 of them were policemen.

Overnight, television footage showed opposition activists huddled on Independence Square, or Maidan, encircled by fires and smoke from burning tents as fighting with riot police moved closer. Several floors of a trade union building, used as an anti-government headquarters, burned in Kiev, reports RFE/RL. Water cannon was being used to put out the fires on the square and in the building.

ITAR-TASS reports that at 06:00 local time (GMT +2), 361 wounded people turned for medical aid in medical institutions in the city. 241 of them were taken to hospitals. The ministry said that 25 people were killed, eight of them died at hospitals, four died at a hospital of the Interior Ministry, 13 dead people were brought to the Kiev forensic expertise bureau.

Seventy-nine law enforcers, five journalists, one lawmaker and three children under 18 were taken to hospitals.

At 15.55 p.m. metro in Kyiv ceased its work. The press service of Kyiv metro said that the metro will be closed “till the stabilization of situation”, UNIAN reports. City officials also announced that traffic into the capital would be restricted from midnight, and called upon businesses not to open on February 19.

Protesters have also stormed government buildings and police centers in several cities in western Ukraine including Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopol.

Opposition leaders Vitali Klitschko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk met with Viktor Yanukovich early on February 19, but Klitschko said afterwards that the talks had ended with no solution to the crisis.

"I am very unhappy because it was no discussion and the president doesn't want to listen to the opposition. They don't want to listen, it's just one way and the opposition and all protesters have to stop protests, have to stop demonstration he said. But right now it's very important to make a break and not fight any more," Klitschko said.

Viktor Yanukovich has urged leaders of the opposition to distance themselves from "radicals," as riot police launched a fresh assault on the main anti-government protest camp in Kiev.

Yanukovich made the comments in a statement, after failed overnight talks with opposition leaders. He blamed opposition leaders for the latest upsurge of violence in the capital. But Yanukovich said it was "not too late to end the conflict."

Let us recall that the recent violence erupted after protesters demanding constitutional reforms to curb Yanukovich's powers broke through a police cordon outside parliament. The rally turned violent after demonstrators threw stones and fireworks at policemen, who fired rubber bullets and tear gas.