Scuffles between protesters and police outside presidential offices in Ukraine

Anti-government protesters scuffled with riot police near the presidential offices in Ukraine's capital Kiev early on Tuesday morning.

Wearing helmets and holding shields, Ukrainian police surrounded protesters and began removing barricades in the area.

Paramedics could be seen treating an injured protester, while another injured protester was carried away by fellow protesters.

Barricades could be seen on fire.

It is believed that police is trying to clear the area around Kiev's administration buildings ahead of meetings between Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and three former Ukrainian presidents on Tuesday.

In a surprise move, Yanukovych announced he would sit down with three former Ukrainian presidents - Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko - on Tuesday to discuss a way out of the crisis that has paralyzed the country.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, also was heading to Ukraine to help defuse the tensions.

The removal of the barricades came a day after hundreds of thousands of demonstrators crammed into Kiev, the biggest in three weeks of protests that started when Ukraine's president backed away from signing a long-awaited pact to deepen ties with the 28-nation European Union.

Protesters are angered not only by the thwarting of their desire to become closer to the West and spin out of Russia's orbit, but also by police violence against the demonstrators.

Club-swinging police have twice broken up protest rallies.

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The Russian parliament on Tuesday accused Western nations of interfering in Ukraine and said protesters demonstrating against Kiev's policy U-turn away from the European Union and towards Moscow were destabilizing the country.

In a non-binding statement, the lower house of parliament, or State Duma, called on Ukrainian opposition forces to "stop illegal actions" and urged the West to "stop mounting external pressure on the politics of a country that is brotherly to us."

AP/REUTERS