Dozens of cops hospitalised after Ukraine clashes ahead of polls

KIEV: Ukraine’s police said on Sunday that 25 officers were injured in clashes with ultra-nationalists who tried to attack a presidential motorcade ahead of elections at the end of this month.

Nineteen police officers were hospitalised in the city of Cherkasy, where supporters of the far-right National Corps party tried to block President Petro Poroshenko’s motorcade and accused the government of corruption.

Three officers were also injured in clashes with the same group in Kiev near the presidential offices, with one hospitalised. The incidents further exacerbate tensions ahead of the presidential elections on March 31 in a country plagued by graft scandals and an ongoing conflict with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Police spokesman Yaroslav Trakalo told AFP that probes have been opened into the events in Kiev and Cherkasy. A police video from the city about 150 kilometres southeast of Kiev shows a crowd of men, some with masks on, swarm around a motorcade of police cars, with some climbing on the roofs, opening car doors and punching policemen.

The protesters lit flares, filling the street with smoke, and shouted obscenities. "Who are you protecting, these scumbags devastated Ukraine’s army!" one of the protesters can be heard in the video.