Opposition leader urges a cease-fire in Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- A top opposition leader Thursday urged protesters to maintain a shaky cease-fire with police after at least two demonstrators were killed in clashes this week, but some in the crowd appeared defiant, jeering and chanting "revolution" and "shame."

Emerging from hours-long talks with President Viktor Yanukovych, opposition leader Oleh Tyahnybok asked demonstrators in Kiev for several more days of a truce, saying the president has agreed to ensure the release of dozens of detained protesters and stop further detentions.

Other opposition leaders offered mixed reports on the outcome of the meeting, with Vitali Klitschko saying negotiations had brought little result.

He and Tyanhnybok were booed at the barricades by angry demonstrators and the atmosphere appeared tense.

"We are not going to sit and wait for nobody-knows-what," said ski mask-wearing protester Andriy Pilkevich, who was building barricades near police lines from giant bags of ice. "Those who want to win, must fight."

Interior Minster Vitali Zakharchenko issued a statement guaranteeing police would not take action against the large protest camp on Independence Square, known as the Maidan. He called on the police to exercise calm and not react to provocations.

The developments came as hundreds of enraged protesters in several regions in western Ukraine, where Yanukovych has little support, seized government offices and forced one governor loyal to Yanukovych to resign.

At least two people were killed by gunfire at the site of clashes in Kiev on Wednesday. Demonstrators had pelted riot police with barrages of stones and set police buses on fire, while the officers responded with rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades.

Opposition leaders had offered a Thursday evening deadline for the government to make concessions or face new clashes. Protesters had quenched barricades that had been set on fire, but lit them again in the evening.

Although one opposition leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, said after the talks that "there is a really good chance" to stop the bloodshed, Klitschko was more downbeat.

"The only thing we were able to achieve was not much," a grim Klitschko told the crowd.

He urged protesters to refrain from violence and continue peaceful protests to avoid further bloodshed.

"I am afraid, yes, I am afraid of human losses," Klitschko said. "We will be widening the territory of the Maidan further until these guys start reckoning with us.

The president called a special session of parliament next week to discuss the tensions, telling the parliament speaker: "The situation demands an urgent settlement." But there was no indication that the move represented a compromise, since the president's backers hold a majority of seats.

The protests began after Yanukovych turned away from closer ties with the European Union in favor of getting a bailout loan from Russia. They turned violent this week after he pushed through harsh anti-protest laws, rejecting protesters' demands that he resign and call new elections.

Support for Yanukovych is very thin in western Ukraine and most residents want closer ties to the 28-nation EU.

In Lviv, a city in near the Polish border 450 kilometers (280 miles) west of Kiev, hundreds of activists burst Thursday into the office of regional governor Oleh Salo, a Yanukovych appointee, shouting "Revolution!" and singing Christmas carols.

After surrounding him and forcing him to sign a resignation letter, an activist ripped it out of Salo's hands and lifted it up to the cheers and applause of the crowd. Salo later retracted his signature, saying he had been coerced.

Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters smashed windows, broke doors and stormed into the governor's office in the city of Rivne, shouting "Down with the gang!" -- a common reference to Yanukovych's government. Once inside, they sang the national anthem.

Angry crowds also besieged government offices in other western regions.

Meanwhile, anger spread after a video was released online appearing to show police abusing and humiliating a naked protester in what looked like a location close to the site of the Kiev clashes.

In the video, a young man, his body covered in multiple bruises, wearing nothing but socks, is made to stand on the snow in freezing temperatures, while a policeman punches him in the head and others force him to pose for photos.

The Interior Ministry issued a statement, apologizing "for the impermissible actions of people wearing police uniforms" and launched an investigation into the incident.

The protests have been centered on Kiev's main square, where demonstrators have defended a large tent camp for nearly two months. On Wednesday, riot police moved to dismantle barricades erected next to a government district nearby and two people were fatally shot in the clashes.

The opposition has blamed the deaths on authorities, but Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Thursday that the two men's wounds were caused by hunting rifles, which the police do not possess. The Interior Ministry said that the people could have been killed in order to escalate the crisis.

The opposition maintains that as many as five people died in Wednesday's clashes, but say they have no evidence as the bodies were removed by authorities.

The Interior Ministry said Thursday that 73 people have been detained, 52 of whom are being investigated for "mass riots" -- a new criminal charge that carries a prison sentence of up to eight years.

Reaction from the West and neighboring Russia has been mixed.

The United States has revoked the visas of Ukrainian officials linked to violence and threatened more sanctions. On Thursday, it welcomed Yanukovych's face-to-face talks with the opposition as a "necessary first step toward resolving this crisis."

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Thursday that if the situation in Ukraine does not stabilize, the EU "would assess possible consequences in its relationship." Barroso also said he had received assurances from Yanukovych that the Ukrainian leader did not foresee the need to impose a state of emergency.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her nation doesn't think this is the time to consider sanctions against the Ukrainian government but added that it must comply "with its obligations to secure fundamental democratic rights."

Russia, in turn, accused the West of meddling in Ukraine's affairs.

"We feel regret and indignation about the obvious foreign interference in the developments in Kiev," Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.

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AP writers contributing to this report included Svetlana Fedas in Lviv; Maria Danilova in Kiev; John-Thor Dahlburg in Davos, Switzerland; Raf Casert in Brussels; Josh Lederman in Washington, Geir Moulson in Berlin; and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow.