Activists try to force their way past riot police to parliament in Kiev as harsh laws to halt protests are passed by President Yanukovych

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Ukraine's simmering protests against President Viktor Yanukovych boiled over into violence on Sunday after new laws banning large-scale rallies brought hundreds of thousands of defiant opponents onto the streets.

After the main mass protest in central Kiev, hundreds of radical activists started storming a police cordon, attacking riot police with sticks and chains in an attempt to push their way towards the Ukrainian parliament, which was cordoned off by rows of police buses.

Wearing masks or balaclavas to disguise their identities, the protesters threw stones, petards and firebombs. The police responded with the stun grenades, leaving a dozen protesters injured.

In a combustible standoff, for the first time in Ukraine's history the police briefly used water cannon on the protesters and warned that participation in the storming of government buildings could lead to up to 15 years in jail.

The world heavyweight boxing champion and leader of the Udar (Punch) opposition party Vitali Klitschko, who tried to calm the crowd, was sprayed in the face with white powder from a fire extinguisher.

"What you are doing now is a big danger," Klitschko shouted to the protesters.

Klitschko, who announced he would participate in presidential elections scheduled for spring 2015 urged Yanukovych to announce snap presidential elections to relieve tensions.

"I'm calling on Yanukovych to find strength and do not repeat the fate of Ceaușescu and Gaddafi," he said, referring to the slain Romanian and Libyan dictators.

The crowd set two empty police buses on fire, shouting "Kiev, give up !" and "Let us in!" as thousands more looked on.

Pro-European protests in Ukraine, known as Euromaidan, started almost two months ago when the country's government abruptly stopped preparations for free trade deal with Europe under Russian pressure. But tensions intensified on Thursday when the country's pro-government parliament passed the new laws imposing a number of restrictions on civil society, including a ban on wearing helmets or masks at rallies and hampering work of public organisations.

Yanukovych signed the controversial bill on the next day despite the criticism of the West, which provoked the resignation of his chief of staff Sergiy Liovochkin and reportedly of his spokeswoman Darka Chepak.

At a peaceful rally earlier in the day many of the protesters booed the opposition, who revealed a plan to gradually organize an alternative government, parliament and elect a "people's mayor" of Kiev.

"After what our leaders said from the stage, such a large number of people will not come next time," a 26-year-old lawyer Oleksandr Honchar from Kiev told the Guardian. "We need the more active but of course peaceful actions," he added.

A politically active group of car drivers, the so-called Automaidan, rushed to picket the parliament building until politicians rescinded the new laws.

The Automaidan said they had nothing to do with the radicals who fought the police. "I condemn the violence which has happened now. It wasn't our plan," said Arseniy Yatseniuk, leader of the opposition Batkivshchyna party, speaking from Kiev's main Independence Square.

Hundreds of metres from the clashes dozens of men in helmets formed a line in order to defend the camp on Independence Square, which they feared could be stormed by the police.

"What are they doing?! They are storming the empty parliament, which makes no sense," one of them, Taras, told the Guardian. "Our rally doesn't need this."