Two activists were shot dead Jan. 22 during a police crackdown in Kiev, the first fatalities since the start of Ukraine's two-month-long protests.
Prosecutors said that the corpse of an activist with gunshot wounds to the head and chest was found in a library used by activists as an infirmary. Shortly afterwards, another corpse with gunshot wounds was also confirmed, the statement added. Protesters claimed they were shot by police snipers but this was not confirmed by the prosecutors.
Meanwhile, the medical centre of the protest movement said that a third activist was killed after falling from the top of the ceremonial entrance to Dynamo Kiev stadium adjacent to the protests.
Ukrainian police on Jan. 22 stormed protesters' barricades early in the morning on Grushevsky Street in Kiev.
The move by police increased tensions to a new peak after two months of protests over President Viktor Yanukovych's failure to sign a deal for closer ties with the EU.
Police arrested protesters and created a large hole in the barricades which the protesters had set up behind burned out wrecks of destroyed police buses. Some protesters threw Molotov cocktails and stones. Police responded with stun grenades and fired rubber bullets, an AFP correspondent said.
There was so far no move by the police against the main protest camp on Independence Square and it was not clear if the security forces were planning a new assault.
'Terrorists' to be punished: PM
Ukraine's Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said on Wednesday anti-government protests had brought "terrorists" on to the streets and warned that all "criminal actions" would be punished.
Speaking to his cabinet in Kiev, close to where protesters confronted riot police on Wednesday, Azarov said: "Terrorists from the 'Maidan' (Independence Square) seized dozens of people and beat them ... I am officially stating that these are criminals who must answer for their action."
He blamed opposition leaders for inflaming the crisis by calling for protest action which he said destabilised the situation in the country.
Azarov told earlier Russian television that if "provocateurs" did not stop, the authorities could act under controversial new laws that essentially ban large protests in Ukraine.
Influential news site Dzerkalo Tyzhnia said that the authorities had already worked out a precise plan to regain control of the site using 8,000 members of the security forces.
A new set of laws, which ban nearly all forms of protest in the ex-Soviet country and have enraged demonstrators, were officially published in the newspaper of the Ukranian parliament. They allow for jail terms of up to five years for those who blockade public buildings and the arrest of protesters wearing masks or helmets.
KIEV - Agence France-Presse
