Kyiv police forcefully broke up a large gathering of protesters in Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti), beating demonstrators with truncheons, according to eyewitnesses and news agencies. There are reports of numerous injuries and detainees. The Associated Press said that police moved in shortly after 4 a.m. on Saturday, swinging clubs and using tear gas, according to a protest organizer, Sergei Milnichenko.

At that time, several hundred protesters remained, the news agency reported, down from the 10,000 people who gathered on Nov. 29 to call for the resignation of President Viktor Yanukovych in the wake of his refusal to sign a long-anticipated association agreement with the European Union.