Nina Potarskaya, 30, worked last night for Euromaidan protesters coordinating medical volunteers across Kiev. “I can confirm I saw people with injuries from live ammunition: one man arrived at Hospital 17 with a punctured lung; there were many other people with injuries and contusions from grenades,” she said.

“Only people who are very seriously hurt will go to the hospital, because they are afraid that they will be arrested if they go there, so people with smaller injuries would rather not seek treatment.”

Mykola Polishchuk, Kiev’s chief neurosurgeon and Ukraine’s minister of health in 2005, helped treat the wounded throughout the night. “I was in the centre of all the action. The most extreme injuries started to come in after 2pm. Most of the injured people had head injuries they had been hit with stones and bricks. There were injuries from live ammunition as well,” he said, standing outside Mychailivskiy Cathedral, which first served as a makeshift hospital following the first police attack on Maidan in November.

“What was surprising for me was how professional the work of the volunteer medical sisters was. I saw the first three people who died. The first was injured in the heart. The second one had his head split at the back, his brain was badly injured and he died in a few minutes. The third person died when someone drove over him with a car.

“I saw many things last night. But no injured person blamed anyone or yelled or cried for help. I saw young people who had a lot of injuries in their legs and their hips from grenades, and they just said: ‘Make a bandage and we will go on the frontline again.’

“When we called for the ambulances, the riot police prevented them from coming close to the hospital and took the ambulance to treat their own men. I tried to persuade them that we had much more serious injuries inside, but they would not listen. One ambulance was attacked and destroyed by titushki [suspected hired thugs] with baseball bats; around 30 medical vehicles [including volunteers with cars] had their tyres slashed even though they were filled with injured people trying to get to the hospitals.”