Members of Ukraine's armed forces have called on President Viktor Yanukovich to take "urgent measures...to stabilise the situation in the country", their first intervention in a crisis that has brought down the government and seen so-called people's councils take control of several major cities.
The military staff spoke a day after Mr Yanukovich abruptly took sick leave, and as the Kremlin's point man on Ukraine, Sergei Glazyev, was quoted as saying Ukraine's leader must either "put down the revolt...or risk losing power."
“Servicemen and employees of Ukraine’s armed forces...have called on the commander-in-chief to take urgent measures within the limits of existing legislation to stabilise the situation in the country,” the defence ministry said in a statement.
“The...armed forces regard as unacceptable the seizure of state offices, which prevents representatives of state and local authorities from fulfilling their duties,” the statement said, adding that “further escalation of the confrontation threatens the country’s territorial integrity.”
Ukrainian media, enquiring as to whose views the statement represents, report that it was approved yesterday at a defence ministry meeting attended by several hundred employees.
Sporadic fighting between riot police and protesters in Kiev has killed seven demonstrators, according to activists. Officials say only two protesters have died, and they deny that police fired the shots that killed them.
The riot police - which are hated by many protesters for their alleged brutality - are controlled by the interior ministry. The army, air force and navy come under the authority of the defence ministry, which earlier this week said it would not intervene in civil disturbances.
Opposition politicians say sources in the armed forces have told them that plans are secretly being made for Mr Yanukovich to declare a state of emergency, which would give him much broader powers to crush unrest that has rapidly spread across the country of 46 million people.
Vitali Klitschko, an opposition leader, said Mr Yanukovich's sudden diagnosis with an "acute respiratory illness and high temperature" was a "political illness".
"I remember from the Soviet Union it's a bad sign," he said yesterday. "It's a bad sign because always if some Soviet Union leaders have to make an unpopular decision, they go to the hospital."
Protesters who first rallied in late November when Mr Yanukovich rejected a historic EU pact and sought to repair ties with Russia now say they will not leave the streets until he is ousted.
In recent days, the government has resigned, parliament has revoked a sweeping anti-protest law and an amnesty has been offered to detained protesters.
The opposition says, however, that Mr Yanukovich has not yet signed the annulment of anti-protest legislation and they denounce the terms of the amnesty, and vow to stay on the streets until the president resigns or calls snap elections.
Just hours after calling in sick yesterday, Mr Yanukovich suggested in a statement that he would make no more concessions.
“The authorities have fulfilled all their obligations...However, the opposition continues to whip up the situation,” he said.
“I am convinced we need to understand that there is no future for the state and the people if the political interests of certain groups are given precedence over the very existence of Ukraine.”
The European Union and United States have traded accusations with Russia that they are interfering in Ukraine.
Sergei Glazyev, an adviser on Ukraine to Russian president Vladimir Putin, said today that Mr Yanukovich "is now facing a creeping coup and, as guarantor of the constitution, the security and the integrity of Ukraine, (he) has no choice."
“Either he defends Ukrainian statehood and puts down the revolt, which is provoked and financed by external forces, or he risks losing power, and then Ukraine faces rising chaos and internal conflict, from which one can see no escape,” Mr Glazyev told the newspaper of Russia’s state energy firm, Gazprom.
Last night, an opposition activist who disappeared more than a week ago was found alive, but badly beaten, in a village outside Kiev. Dmytro Bulatov said he was dumped in a forest by men “with Russian accents” who kidnapped him, slashed his body, cut off part of his ear and hung him up as if to “crucify” him.