Deadly violence grips Kiev as protesters advancing on Parliament are shot at by police with Kalashnikovs and sniper rifles. Via The Foreign Bureau, WSJ's global news update.
KIEV, Ukraine—Ukraine slid deeper into turmoil Thursday as dozens of protesters were killed amid pitched battles in the center of the capital.
President Viktor Yanukovych, under heavy Western pressure to call early elections, reached out to Russia as his grip on parts of the country appeared to weaken.
As sirens wailed through Kiev's narrow streets, top European diplomats shuttled between Mr. Yanukovych and opposition leaders late into the night, pushing for fresh elections to pull the country back from the brink.
As violence reignited in Kiev, Ukraine following the collapse of a truce, Kiev resident Victoria Makarova explains how residents' fears are turning to getting to work and shopping for food.

Photos: Clashes in Kiev

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Antigovernment protesters carry a man on a stretcher in Independence Square in Kiev on Thursday.Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko

Medics working with the opposition said that most of the casualties were civilians, clad in motorcycle helmets and carrying homemade shields fashioned from wood and metal, apparently shot by snipers.Ambulances ferried dead and wounded to hospitals after a truce that had been declared Wednesday night fell apart hours later. At a makeshift medical center inside a cathedral, some two dozen doctors from across the country treated those they could as a steady stream of cars delivered medicine, food and other supplies.
Several corpses, some covered in sheets, others in Ukrainian flags, were laid out on Kiev's main street and in the lobby of a downtown hotel, which served as a first-aid station and a morgue.
The death toll for the week climbed to 75, according to the government; opposition representatives put it at more than 100.

Independence Square: Then and Now

Independence Square in Kiev in April 2009, left, when a Ukrainian student group formed a smiley face, and on Thursday, as protesters inspected damage from recent clashes with government forces. .
Both sides braced themselves for more fighting. On Kiev's Independence Square, protesters buttressed their defenses and their chants against the president turned from "Get the criminal out" to "Death to the criminal."
With both sides hardened by days of bloodletting, the room for compromise appeared to be narrowing perilously. Protesters appear unlikely to accept anything less than Mr. Yanukovych's resignation, with many demanding he and his close advisers be put on trial.
Amid the violence, Mr. Yanukovych spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. A senior European Union diplomat said the Ukrainian leader was seeking to ensure that his ally supported a political solution that was beginning to take shape with the Europeans. The diplomat stressed that discussions were very tentative. The Kremlin, which has long endorsed cracking down on the protesters, sent a human-rights official to Kiev as a mediator, though it wasn't clear what role he would play.
As Mr. Putin's role appeared to grow, the White House rejected the idea that U.S.-Russian rivalries would cause problems. "While there may be some geopolitical intrigue about whether or not Vladimir Putin's sphere of influence is enhanced or reduced by that outcome…it's not how this administration views the dynamics that are at play in this situation," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Secretary of State John Kerry called in a statement Thursday night for Mr. Yanukovych to establish a new interim government. Vice President Joe Bidenspoke with Mr. Yanukovych by phone Thursday afternoon, the White House said, to "strongly condemn the violence against civilians" in Kiev.
CLEANUP: Antigovernment protesters cleared burned rubble and debris in Independence Square in Kiev on Thursday after recapturing the landmark site in clashes with police. Getty Images
Mr. Yanukovych also spoke by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who briefed President Barack Obama, and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron.
Mr. Biden's office said in a statement that he called on Mr. Yanukovych to immediately pull back all security forces, including police snipers and irregular units.
Negotiations in Kiev stretched late into the night. The senior EU diplomat said Mr. Yanukovych had agreed to establish an inclusive government, to organize both presidential and parliamentary elections early, and to change the constitution by September. Currently presidential elections aren't due until March 2015 and parliamentary elections well after that.
"Progress made but important differences remain," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski tweeted late in the day as he, along with his German and French counterparts, headed from talking to opposition leaders back to the president's office.
However, Western officials and opposition leaders remained deeply skeptical about a deal after what they see as repeated betrayals by the Ukrainian president.
"It is hard to treat this entirely seriously when it comes to President Yanukovych's obligations," said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw.
Confidence in Mr. Yanukovych among members of his own Party of the Regions appeared to be weakening as the carnage spread.
More than a dozen lawmakers announced they were quitting the party. Some voted with the opposition in a late-night session of parliament in favor of ordering law-enforcement officers not to fire their weapons and to return to their barracks.
Volodymyr Makeyenko, Kiev's chief administrator, announced he was quitting the Party of Regions coalition and taking personal control of city functions. He said he would reopen the subway, which had been closed this week in what protesters saw as an effort to cut their supplies.
He appealed to Mr. Yanukovych to end the bloodshed. "No power is worth human victims," he said.
In Lviv, the heart of the pro-European regions in western Ukraine, Mayor Andriy Sadoviy said police and security officials had refused to serve the Yanukovych government after protesters took over police stations and other offices.
"We have a nonstandard situation: As of yesterday, all law enforcers stopped work," he told Channel 5 television, adding that volunteer civilian patrols protected the city through the night.
Ukraine has become the object of a Cold War-style battle for spheres of influence, which sharpened dramatically late last year after Mr. Yanukovych abruptly backed out of a partnership deal with the EU and accepted a financial bailout from Moscow.

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Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets, resulting in a standoff that has evolved into the worst political violence in the country's 22 years of independence from the Soviet Union.
Seeking to raise the pressure, EU officials approved new sanctions Thursday against Ukrainian officials deemed responsible for the violence, with their scope depending on whether the violence worsens. Top U.S. officials were coordinating with the EU on sanctions, Mr. Earnest said.
At the same time, Moscow hinted it might delay release of a $2 billion loan desperately needed by Kiev unless Mr. Yanukovych regains control.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said his government would cooperate only with a "legitimate and effective" government in Kiev and not one that allows others "to wipe their feet on it like a doormat."
Russia has backed Mr. Yanukovych and denounced the West for what it calls meddling in a country Russia sees as a natural ally.
The Ukrainian health ministry late Thursday put the casualty toll since the violence erupted on Tuesday at 75 dead and 562 wounded. A presidential statement said earlier that dozens of police were killed or wounded Thursday.
Witnesses said the protesters appeared to have attacked police lines Thursday morning, convinced the authorities were only using the truce to buy time.
Protesters sought to retake ground that police had occupied early in the week.
Police retreated, but then sporadic shooting continued throughout the day.
Some of the injured protesters were taken to a hotel just off the square, where relatives and friends searched for the missing.
Some of the demonstrators captured uniformed police and beat them severely. Other police officers were marched out of Independence Square and held in a police station that had been taken over by the opposition near the foreign ministry building.
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A man hurt in clashes is treated in St. Michael's Cathedral this week. Reuters
Mikhail Sokolo, a protester who helped escort the prisoners to the building, invited reporters to film them and ask their names in hopes of documenting that the police officers weren't tortured.
The policemen, their faces sooty from days of standing on the street under the smoke of burning tires, kept looking down to the pavement. Sometimes they ducked when passersby threatened to hit them.
"We want to show the world that in spite of all this we are a civilized people," Mr. Sokolo said. "We are Europeans, and we believe in the Geneva Convention," he said, referring to the international treaties governing the conduct of armed conflict.
Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko appeared on television in military fatigues and accused protesters of opening fire on law enforcers, calling them "extremists who are trying to shift the blame to law enforcers."
He announced that riot police in Kiev had been issued military weapons that he said would be used "in accordance with the law."
In western regions of Ukraine, where protesters seized government buildings and police stations, Mr. Zakharchenko said they were terrorizing public officials.
"The opposition leaders have lost control of the extremists," he said. "They claim that they have no relation to the radicals, but they incite them to attack and are unable to control them."
Opposition leaders dismissed those allegations.
The Pentagon said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other U.S. defense leaders have tried all week to reach Ukrainian Minister of Defense Pavel Lebedev, but haven't gotten through.
Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said it was unusual for a counterpart not to take a call from the American defense secretary. He said the U.S. believes that the armed forces are being used to guard weapons depots and aren't participating in the violence.
—Stephen Fidler, Carol E. Lee, Julian E. Barnes, Katya Gorchinskaya and Alexander Kolyandr contributed to this article.

Revolt Through the Years

See a timeline of the biggest protests in Ukraine since the pro-democracy Orange Revolution in 2004.
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