Ukraine's President Yanukovych offers PM position to opposition leader
Police are spraying protesters with water which quickly freezes their clothing, says Steve Rosenberg
Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych has offered the position of prime minister to an opposition leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
Mr Yatsenyuk is from jailed ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko's party.
The offer came after talks on Saturday with opposition leaders in a new effort to end worsening unrest that is spreading across the country.
The interior minister earlier said efforts to resolve the crisis peacefully were "futile".
Four protesters and a policeman have died in clashes since November when the government rejected closer EU ties.
The crisis escalated this week when two activists were killed, and another was found dead with torture marks in a forest near the capital.
A 45-year-old protester is said to have died in a Kiev hospital on Saturday, after sustaining injuries in earlier violence.
President Viktor Yanukovych had promised to make concessions to try to end the country's crisis, pledging to amend anti-protest laws and reshuffle the cabinet.
But Vitaly Klitschko - one of the opposition leaders invited to the Yanukovych talks - said the protesters now wanted the president to resign.
Earlier, Ukraine's interior minister said talks with protesters had failed.
Vitaliy Zakharchenko - in charge of the police and one of the figures most despised by the protesters - blamed "radical groups" for the unrest, adding that protesters had arms.
"We will consider those who remain on the Maidan [the square] and in captured buildings to be extremist groups," he said
"The events of recent days in the Ukrainian capital showed that our attempts to peacefully resolve the conflict without resorting to forceful opposition remain futile," he added.
Although the protest movement - the "EuroMaidan" - is largely peaceful, a hardcore of radicals have been fighting pitched battles with police away from the main protest on Independence Square.
Mr Zakharchenko accused opposition of no longer able to control "radical forces" and of putting civilians in danger.
He also said that activists had shot a police officer and kidnapped three others - allegations denied as "false and dangerous" by protest leaders.
Later on Saturday, Mr Zakharchenko said protesters had released two officers, who were subsequently sent to hospital. Again, protesters called his words a provocation.
The situation in Kiev remained tense on Saturday after further clashes between protesters and riot police 
Orthodox priests have been urging security forces to refrain from using violence 
The government has said peaceful negotiations had yielded no results, blaming the violence on "extremist" groups 
The protests are taking place amid snowfall and freezing temperatures On Friday protesters seized a number of government buildings in Ukrainian cities outside Kiev, particularly in the west, which has traditionally favoured closer ties with Europe, including in the cities of Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lutsk and Lviv.
On Saturday the protests spread to cities further east, including Vinnytsya, just west of Kiev.
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