KIEV: Fresh fighting flared in central Kiev on Thursday, shattering a truce declared by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, as the Russian-backed leader met European ministers demanding he compromise with pro-EU opponents.

A Reuters photographer saw the bodies of 21 dead civilians in Independence Square, a few hundred meters from where the president met the EU delegation, after protesters who have occupied the area for almost three months hurled petrol bombs and paving stones to drive riot police from the plaza.

The death toll has risen to 51, including at least 12 policemen, since Tuesday.

Acting Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharschenko said police had been issued with combat weapons and would use them “in accordance with the law” to defend themselves and others and to free hostages. The ministry said protesters were holding 67 policemen hostage.

In a sign of dwindling support for Yanukovich, his hand-picked head of Kiev’s city administration quit the ruling Party of the Regions in protest at bloodshed in the streets.

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland spent much of the day in Kiev, meeting at length with Yanukovich and extending their stay to talk to opposition leaders. They sent an interim report to EU colleagues in Brussels, who were meeting to decide on targeted sanctions against those deemed responsible for the worst bloodshed in Ukraine since it left the crumbling Soviet Union 22 years ago.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton told reporters in Brussels she had spoken twice to the visiting trio and would convey their impressions to the EU meeting. An EU source in Moscow said the ministers saw a chance for a compromise between the authorities and the opposition.

A draft EU statement prepared for the meeting called for “targeted measures” against individuals, an arms embargo and a ban on equipment for internal repression.

Russia criticized the European and US actions, calling them “blackmail” that would only make matters worse. Russian President Vladimir Putin is sending an envoy to Kiev to try to mediate with the opposition at Yanukovich’s request, the RIA news agency quoted a Kremlin spokesman as saying.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called to urge Yanukovich to accept the offer of EU mediation in the crisis.

Raising pressure on Yanukovich to restore order if he wants the next desperately needed loan, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow would not hand over cash to a leadership that let opponents walk over it “like a doormat.”

Ukraine is caught in a geopolitical tug-of-war between Moscow — which sees it as a market and ally and fears protests spreading to Russia — and the West, which says Ukrainians should be free to choose economic integration with the EU.

Thursday’s renewed fighting, which subsided after about an hour, heightened concern voiced by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk that Ukraine could descend into civil war or split between the pro-European west and Russian-speaking east.

Video from Thursday morning’s clashes on the edge of the Kiev square, known as the Maidan or “Euro-Maidan” by protesters, showed both sides used firearms.

“Berkut” riot policemen fired bursts from automatic rifles on the run as they covered retreating colleagues fleeing past a nearby arts center just off the plaza.