Dozens arrested after deadly riots in Kyiv

The police officer was killed in front of Ukraine's parliament building on Monday following an explosion caused by a grenade thrown from the crowd of protesters.

The National Guard member has been identified by the country's interior ministry as a 24-year-old conscript. The person responsible for throwing the grenade was reportedly arrested, along with around 30 other demonstrators.

"Investigation and punishment will be unavoidable," Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said, calling the clashes an "anti-Ukrainian war."

Avakov said that as a result of the clashes, 122 people were hospitalized, most of them police officers. Also among the injured were a number of Ukrainian journalists and two French reporters.

Antoine Delaunay, a French freelance photographer, wrote on Twitter that he "took a rock" to his face during the demonstration.

No casualties were initially reported among the protesters, which included some 100 activists. Many of them were members of a Ukrainian nationalist party known as Svoboda.

'Decentralization' bill

Demonstrators had taken to the streets of the Ukrainian capital on Monday after 265 members of Ukraine's 450-seat parliament - also known as the Verkhovna Rada - approved constitutional changes in a preliminary vote.

The controversial "decentralization" bill proposed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko would grant greater autonomy to the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which are mostly controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

The amendment is part of Kyiv's side of the bargain to implement February's Minsk peace accord.

The proposed legislation has been condemned by critics, however, as "anti-Ukrainian" and "pro-Vladimir Putin."

Monday's violence was the worst unrest seen in Kyiv since a deadly popular uprising started in the winter of 2013, which ultimately ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych, sparking a pro-Russian separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

More than 6,800 people have been killed since the conflict broke out last March.

ksb/msh (Reuters, AFP, AP, dpa)