Clashes in Kiev as anti-government protest escalates (VIDEO)

An anti-government demonstration in downtown Kiev escalated in scuffles on Wednesday afternoon, with 1,000 people already taking part in the event.

The clashes between National Guard troops, deployed near the central metro station Arsenalnaya, and the participants of a nationalist demonstration erupted after police had arrested several protesters.

Protesters are throwing Molotov cocktails at the building of the Prosecutor-General’s Office, saying that’s just a “warning signal.” Major police and National Guard forces have been deployed to the centre of the city.

The disorder has engulfed Kiev Borispol airport where a group of Ukrainian paramilitaries, calling themselves the Battalion Brotherhood, threaten to suspend air links with the EU countries. Dozens of people have been gathering near the key airport.

“The purpose of the rally is to demonstrate the military may easily upset air links with the EU countries, if their commanders fail to realize that support for Ukraine’s current authorities is criminal,” the Ukrainski Noviny news portal quotes one of the demonstrators as saying.
Ukraine’s first ever strike by employees of the state-run transport enterprise has been announced at the airport.

The protests in Ukraine come amid the economic crisis in the country. Earlier on Wednesday, the major power plants, Uglegorskaya and Slavyanskaya, suspended operation due to the lack of coal.

The Ukrainian financial system is also about to collapse. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has earlier acknowledged wrongful actions in the foreign currency policy of the country’s National Bank.