A 21-year-old volunteer medic who tweeted "I am dying" after she was reportedly shot in the neck during violent protests in the Ukrainian capital Thursday sparked an outpouring of sadness online.

Olesya Zhukovska posted the words in Ukrainian on her Twitter feed and Facebook-like VKontakte account Thursday afternoon, adding fuel to an already emotionally-charged situation after fierce clashes between protesters and riot police on Kiev's central Independence Square claimed dozens of lives.

A nervous taxi driver, heavily-armed riot police, gunfire, dead bodies, crying... Getting from airport to hotel in central Kiev, where clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces rage, is a risky endeavor.

"Enjoy your stay," the pilot says as the airplane lands at Kiev's Boryspil airport on Thursday morning under a low-hanging grey sky and passengers -- many of them journalists -- file out of the near-empty aircraft.

As fighting rages all around him on Kiev's Independence Square, a volunteer medic tears open a young protester's bloodstained T-shirt and desperately pumps his chest as the patient's grey face stares into the sky.

Nearby, protesters scream wildly for people to clear a path for a stretcher carrying a man's covered body. A helmet lies on his chest. His arm dangles down lifelessly.

More than 60 protesters died from gunshot wounds on Thursday in fresh clashes between thousands of demonstrators and heavily-armed riot police in the heart of Kiev, a medic who works with the opposition said.

"More than 60 protesters died today. They all have gunshot wounds," the EuroMiadan Medical Center coordinator Svyatoslav Khanenko told Agence France Presse.

Riot police launched a fresh assault on protesters in central Kiev early Wednesday, escalating a bloody standoff that has already left at least 16 people dead in a dramatic turning point for Ukraine's three-month political crisis.

A volley of tear gas rained down on protesters and more tents went up in flames as riot squads took up position around a monument in the center of Independence Square shortly after 4:00am (02:00 GMT).

Protesters hurled Molotov cocktails as Ukrainian riot police firing stun grenades and water cannon stormed the main anti-government protest camp Tuesday, after the bloodiest day of protests left at least eight people dead and triggered international alarm.

Police broke through barricades with armored vehicles, but faced thousands of protesters armed with stones, fireworks and petrol bombs who had refused to obey an ultimatum to evacuate Kiev's iconic Independence Square.

Ukrainian opposition protesters on Tuesday attacked the party headquarters of embattled President Viktor Yanukovych as fierce clashes with police erupted again in Kiev for the first time in weeks.

Protesters briefly seized the party headquarters after several hundred attacked it with Molotov cocktails and smashed their way inside but later withdrew as smoke continued to billow from part of the building, an Agence France Presse reporter at the scene said.

Ukraine on Monday granted amnesty to opposition protesters after they agreed to end an occupation of Kiev's city hall and other public buildings, while opposition leaders were set to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel to ask for EU assistance.

A law dropping charges against protesters came into force a day after they vacated municipal buildings they had occupied in anger soon after President Viktor Yanukovych's November decision to reject an EU trade deal in favor of closer ties with Russia.

Hundreds of angry demonstrators in Kiev issued an ultimatum to authorities Sunday, demanding amnesty for fellow activists just hours after vacating the highly symbolic headquarters of a protest movement rocking Ukraine.

"We are issuing an ultimatum to authorities -- if they do not immediately announce the complete and unconditional rehabilitation (of protesters) in some 2,000 cases, we will retake city hall," Andriy Illenko, a lawmaker from the nationalist opposition Svoboda (Freedom) party, told protesters.

Dozens of people marched through central Kiev on Sunday pledging their support for Russia's top opposition television channel Dozhd (TV Rain), which is threatened with closure.

Several providers have recently dropped the independent Internet and cable channel -- known for its critical coverage of President Vladimir Putin -- from their television packages in what the station has called a campaign of intimidation.