President Viktor Yanukovych offered to make Arseniy Yatsenyuk prime minister in an effort to calm protesters who have violently clashed with police this past week, the Associated Press reported.
The offer could be a move by the president to calm the protesters but it may also be interpreted by the protesters as a betrayal if the opposition leader accepts Yanukovych's offer, according to the AP.
The protests began in November after Yanukovych turned his back on a long awaited deal with the European Union, and instead closed a deal with Russia, which caused anti-government protesters to take to the streets, the AP reported.
In the past couple of weeks, protesters invaded government offices throughout Kiev and have fought off riot police in Independence Square, the AP reported.
Since the protests began in November 2012, the West have urged both sides to find a common ground to put an end to the violent clashes occurring between the demonstrators and the police, which has killed three protesters in the past week, according to the AP.
Yatsenyuk was a former foreign minister and took part in leading Ukraine towards a pact with Europe, according to the AP.
If Yatsenyuk rejects the offer, it could bring criticism for the opposition for not negotiating, but if he accepts the protesters could see it as a betrayal from their leader and make the protests more violent, the AP reported.
Vitali Klitschko, another opposition leader, was also offered a deputy premiership, the AP reported. Both leaders plan to speak to the protesters on Sunday in Independence Square.
"Blood has already been spilled; now we need to stop the country from breaking up," Alina Semenyuk, a demonstrator in the Square told the AP.
Authorities have claimed protesters took two police officers and tortured them before releasing them, but the commandant of the corps Mykhailo Blavatsky said no police had been seized or harmed by protesters, the AP reported.
"The authorities are looking for a pretext to break up the Maidan and creating all kinds of provocations," Blavatsky said, the AP reported. "Capturing a policeman would only give the authorities reason to go on the attack and we don't need that."
Protesters insist Interior Minister Vitali Zakharchenko is claiming the officers were hurt by protesters to give reason for riot police to invade the camps in the Square, according to the AP.
"We will consider those who remain on the Maidan and in captured buildings to be extremist groups. In the event that danger arises, and radicals go into action, we will be obliged to use force," Zakharchenko said, the AP reported.
In response, Andriy Hrytsenko, another opposition figure and former defense minister, told the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda protesters who have legal arms to carry them in self-defense, according to the AP.
"Firearms should be used only in response to threats to human life. I'll be the first to do this," he was quoted as saying.
