I think the goal is probably to scare/deter them and make a piece of ground unpassable for a short while.

We've had two months of peaceful protest at Maidan being ignored politically and assaulted with police. Many activists have been beaten, some of them are dead.

After two month of Yanukovych plainly ignoring protests and our opposition ("leaders" of the protest) being impotent, protesters were desperate, so the more radical part started to use the violence against police at Hrushevskogo street. Maidan is still a place for peaceful protest.

I don't want to excuse our radical protesters, but the situation was grieve and radical protests succeeded at Yanukovych admitting that he has to do something.

I don't think I've ever heard of a Molotov being directed at a person because that isn't what they are useful for. Not to mention the fact that unless you were to hit a shield/helmet you likely wouldn't break the bottle and ignite the contents.

They have been primarily used for disabling vehicles and making some ground impassable. It doesn't appear that the wiki even references their use against individuals so much as against vehicles.

These police are just standing there, shielding people who previously happily allowed the police to brutalize peacefully protesting civilians and even tried to poison political enemies. So no, they are not simply standing there.

Further, the protesters in the liveleak video only hit police armed with riot gear and once they're rid of that largely leave them alone. That is astonishing control.

The protesters absolutely have been a peaceful bunch. You when they turned violent? After the first video I posted. Had that never happened there would probably be no one on the street right now and he can continue raping the country as usual. After that day or two it goes back to being peaceful and a few weeks later he tried it again. Every single time this thing kind of starts fading out he goes in and fails at violently clearing it up then 2x the people join in.

Are there radicals? Sure. They are limited in number and are definitely not the majority or "uncontrollable" as the Russian media reports it.

Did you watch the first video until the end? They forcefully take the police shields, then, when the police are left standing defenseless, and actually surrender, they tell them to go through, and let them walk out of the building. There's no beating taking place, besides that required to break the police's stand. Even the guy with the fire hose is clearly going for the shield, not actively trying to injure the officer.

Why do you hope that guy loses an eye? That's rather harsh, he's just taunting a little bit. You know the guys on the other side are having a hard time too right?