After a fortnight of relative calm, Kiev is burning again, following the most violent clashes since anti-government protests began three months ago. Any hope from Russian authorities that media attention would be diverted by the Sochi Olympics is over. After a calmer Wednesday, this morning fights restarted and, according to unofficial statistics, the new death toll has reached as high as 50 (mostly protestors, but also police and journalists, with these numbers likely to rise again). Over a thousand people were wounded in a failed attempt by government forces to clear the protest camp on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square).
For the last three months the Maidan has acted like a city in its own right, with its own infrastructure, food and medical help points. Now this image has been replaced with photographs of the scorched Maidan obscured by plumes of smoke, of barricades, burning cars, people with bloody wounds and bandaged heads, some lying on the ground, having been beaten or even killed.
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