A few hundred nationalist demonstrators protested late on Friday outside a Kiev court that had earlier in the day sentenced three men to six years in prison for allegedly plotting to blow up a statue of Soviet founder Lenin near the city'€™s main airport in 2011.

Ukrainian television showed protesters carried by stretcher to an ambulance that had been rushed to the scene. A parliamentary human rights ombudsman said 11 opposition members had been injured and that one person besides Lutsenko remained hospitalized overnight.

Russian state television said the Berkut anti-riot troops began firing tear gas and making arrests after being pelted with rocks by protesters who were trying to block police vans as the three convicts were being led out of the courthouse.

Lutsenko '€œreceived about 10 blows to the head,'€ his spokeswoman, Larisa Sargan, told the online edition of Kiev'€™s Segodnya daily.

Ukrainian nationalists have been a driving force behind anti-government protests that erupted in November after President Viktor Yanukovych ditched a historic EU trade agreement in favor of closer ties with old master Russia.

The first Kiev clashes of the new year threaten to re-energize rallies that began to fizzle out last month when Yanukovych signed a $15-billion economic bailout agreement with Moscow that also slashed the price Ukraine pays for Russian gas imports.

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