KIEV, Ukraine — Heavily armed riot troops broke into the offices of a top Ukrainian opposition party in Kiev and seized its servers Monday, the party said, as anti-government protests crippled the capital for yet another day.
Elsewhere police dismantled or blocked off several small protest tent camps near key national government buildings in the city.
Tensions also rose as a double cordon of helmeted, shield-holding police deployed in the street near Kiev’s city administration building, which demonstrators had occupied and turned into a makeshift command post and dormitory.
The moves came a day after hundreds of thousands of demonstrators crammed into Kiev, the biggest in three weeks of protests that started when Ukraine’s president backed away from signing a long-awaited pact to deepen ties with the 28-nation European Union.
Protesters are angered not only by the thwarting of their desire to become closer to the West and spin out of Russia’s orbit but also by police violence against the demonstrators. Club-swinging police twice have broken up protest rallies.
Ostap Semerak, a member of the Fatherland Party, told The Associated Press that troops broke into the party’s offices on Monday evening, some climbing in through its windows.
“They are storming us. The images are insane,” he said by telephone.
The troops left after confiscating some computer equipment, he said.
The party is headed by imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a longstanding foe of President Viktor Yanukovych, and is the largest opposition grouping in the parliament. Critics say Tymo-shenko’s conviction on abuse-of-office charges was a case of political revenge.
In a surprise move, Yanukovych announced he would sit down with three former Ukrainian presidents Tuesday to discuss a way out of the crisis that has paralyzed the country. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, also was heading to Ukraine to help defuse the tensions.
The protests that erupted Nov. 21 have had an anti-Russian bent because Moscow worked hard to derail the Ukraine-EU deal, issuing threats of trade consequences.
