the violence. Fifteen protesters were killed and an estimated 1,000 were injured.

One protestor suffocated in smoke at the Party of Regions office; three other dead bodies were found at the Officers' House (two with gunshot wounds and one with road accident injuries); another died in an ambulance, also from a gunshot wound; and two more died from heart attacks, Kiev police told Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

The two policemen also died from gunshot wounds, one in an ambulance and the other in the hospital, police said.

Just before midnight on Tuesday, city lights went out in central Kiev and around Indpendence Square. Shortly afterward police and so-called titushki, or thugs for hire, fired ultraviolet paint pellets at protesters to illuminate them in the darkness.

Oleksandr Turchynov, an opposition leader and former deputyprime minister in the government of jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, was wounded while speaking from the main EuroMaidan stage of Independence Square. It's unclear exactly what struck him, but several news outlets reported that he was hit in the face and received medical attention.

Opposition leaders Vitali Klitschko and Arseniy Yatseniuk met with President Viktor Yanukovych after midnight to discuss possible solutions to the unrest. Speaking to Hromadske TV, Klitschko said that he left negotiations first, followed by Yanukovych, without coming to an agreement.

According to Klitschko, the meeting lasted for more than an hour, during which time he and Yatseniuk listened to accusations from the president that the opposition is to blame for the deaths of Ukrainians on the streets. Yanukovych's solution, he added, was for protesters