The scuffles began when activists hemmed in paddy wagons with their cars outside a court. The activists were protesting a six-year sentence, issued earlier Friday, to three men accused of trying to blow up a Lenin statue in 2011.
Riot police from the feared elite Berkut unit came to support them and then started attacking the protesters after they began shaking one of the buses, activists told the Kyiv Post. Three members of parliament were among those injured.
Opposition leader and former interior minister Yuri Lutsenko attempted to mediate, but was himself violently beaten by riot police.