Grenade Explodes During Ukraine Clashes; 1 Officer Killed

KIEV, Ukraine— As lawmakers took up a measure to give greater powers to separatists in eastern Ukraine, nationalist protesters clashed with police outside parliament on Monday and the Interior Ministry said one officer was killed in a grenade blast a...
Grenade Explodes During Ukraine Clashes; 1 Officer Killed
Ukrainian protesters, one using police riot equipment, clash with police after a vote to give greater powers to the east, outside the Parliament, Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Aug. 31, 2015. The Ukrainian parliament has given preliminary approval to a controversial constitutional amendment that would provide greater powers to separatist regions in the east. Hundreds of people gathered in front of the parliament to protest against the amendment. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
The Associated Press
8/31/2015
Updated:
8/31/2015

KIEV, Ukraine— As lawmakers took up a measure to give greater powers to separatists in eastern Ukraine, nationalist protesters clashed with police outside parliament on Monday and the Interior Ministry said one officer was killed in a grenade blast and more than 100 wounded.

It was the worst violence in the capital since the government took power in February 2014.

The decentralization of power was a condition demanded by Russia for a truce signed in Minsk in February aimed at ending the fighting between Ukrainian government troops and Russia-backed separatists that has left more than 6,800 dead since April 2014.

But Ukrainian nationalists strongly oppose changing the constitution, saying that would threaten the country’s sovereignty and independence.

In a televised address, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called decentralization “a difficult but a logical step toward peace,” and insisted that it would not grant autonomy to the rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk.

The measure won preliminary approval on Monday with 265 deputies in the 450-seat parliament voting for it.

But three parties that are part of the majority coalition in parliament refused to give their support, showing the difficulty that Poroshenko faces even within his own pro-Western camp in fulfilling the peace agreement.

When the decentralization bill comes up for final approval, he will need to get at least 300 votes as required for amending the constitution.

“This is not a road to peace and not a road to decentralization,” said the leader of one of those dissenting parties, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. “This is the diametrically opposite process, which will lead to the loss of new territories.”

The officer who was killed in the clashes on Monday was a 25-year-old conscript, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told reporters. He said 122 people were hospitalized — most of them officers, but also some Ukrainian journalists and two French reporters.

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Avakov blamed the clashes on the Svoboda party, which polled less than 5 percent in last year’s parliamentary election, and its leader, Oleg Tyahnybok, who stood side by side with the interior minister during the anti-government protests that toppled then-president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.

“No political differences can justify what you did outside the Rada today,” Avakov said, referring to the parliament.

Svoboda blamed the government, saying that it “provoked Ukrainians to protest” by presenting a bill that it called tantamount to “capitulation to the Kremlin.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in comments to Russian news agencies, voiced Moscow’s concern about the clashes in Kiev, but wouldn’t comment on the bill.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called the clashes “worrying” and said the vote “will facilitate the implementation of the Minsk agreements.”

In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she’s open to holding a new summit with the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and France on the settlement in eastern Ukraine.