Anti-government protesters man barricades of burning tyres in the centre of Ukraine's capital Kiev on Thursday, as opposition leaders issued a stark ultimatum to the government.
Thick black smoke from burning tyres engulfed parts of downtown Kiev as an ultimatum issued by the opposition to the president to call early election or face street rage was set to expire with no sign of a compromise on Thursday.
The three main opposition leaders urged protesters late Wednesday to refrain from violence for 24 hours until their ultimatum to President Viktor Yanukovych expires.
They demanded that Yanukovych dismiss the government, call early elections and scrap harsh anti-protest legislation that triggered the violence.
Police on Wednesday tore down barricades and chased the protesters down the hill from official buildings, but demonstrators later set hundreds of tyres ablaze and regained their positions under plumes of heavy smoke helped by the wind blowing in the police direction.
But some demonstrators said they doubted whether the ultimatum would change the government's position.
"If the president was concerned in the slightest for the well-being of Ukraine, something would have changed by now," said Mykola Nomtsov a demonstrator from Western Ukraine.
Another demonstrator said "more radical actions" were needed and that the protesters were "completely mobilised" on Thursday.
Protester numbers have swelled as the crowds managed to push back hundreds of riot police into a government district adjacent to Kiev's Independence Square.
City health officials and police said that two people died of gunshot wounds during the clashes on Wednesday morning, while the opposition contended as many as five people died.
The deaths were the first since the protests erupted in November over the government's decision to shun the European Union for closer ties to Moscow and over human rights violations.
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