
Protesters on Friday seized a government building in the Ukrainian capital while also maintaining their siege of several governors’ offices in the country’s west, raising the pressure on the government.
After meeting with President Viktor Yanukovych for several hours late Thursday, opposition leaders told the crowds that he had promised to ensure the release of dozens of protesters detained after clashes with police, and stop further detentions. They urged the protesters to maintain a shaky truce following violent street battles in the capital, but were booed by demonstrators eager to resume clashes with police.
The truce has held, but early Friday protesters broke into the downtown building of the Ministry of Agricultural Policy, meeting no resistance.
The demonstrators allowed ministry workers to take their possessions, but wouldn’t allow them to go to work.
The move followed the seizure of local governors’ offices in several western regions on Thursday.
In Lviv, near the Polish border, some 450 kilometers (280 miles) west of Kiev, hundreds of activists burst into the office of the regional governor, Oleh Salo, a Yanukovych appointee, shouting “Revolution!” They forced a local governor to sign a resignation letter and remained in the building, refusing to let the workers in.
Yanukovych, meanwhile, called an emergency session of parliament — which is controlled by his loyalists — next week to discuss the tensions.
His Interior Minister Vitali Zakharchenko issued a statement late Thursday guaranteeing that police would not take action against the large protest camp on Independence Square, known as the Maidan. He also urged police not to react to provocations.
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