THOUSANDS of demonstrators were camped outside Ukraine’s presidential headquarters last night as the country’s election crisis threatened to erupt into civil conflict.

Supporters of Viktor Yushchenko, the pro-Western opposition leader defeated in Sunday’s disputed elections, confronted riot police ringing the headquarters after a day of high drama in which he defiantly took the oath of office and announced a campaign of civil disobedience.

“We won’t leave (the presidencial compound) until Yushchenko enters it as the new Ukrainian president and occupies his post,” Yuliya Tymoshenko, his coalition partner, declared. “Either they will give up their power or we will take it.”

In echoes of the peaceful revolutions that swept the communist world 15 years ago, protesters pinned flowers to the shields of riot police guarding the presidential compound.

“There is no turning back now,” Yuriy Panowik, 25, a demonstrator from Lviv, said. “I’m scared, but we are fighting for our future.” Earlier Mr Yushchenko had led an estimated 200,000 demonstrators through central Kiev to the parliament for a tumultuous emergency session in scenes not witnessed since Ukraine won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

“Ukraine today is on the verge of civil conflict,” he told the emergency session of the Rada. “We have two choices: either the answer will be given by the parliament, or the streets will give an answer.”

At the end of a session rendered inquorate by the absence of pro-government MPs, he read the oath of office with his hand on a 300-year-old Bible. He then opened a window and addressed a huge crowd of supporters waving orange flags.

More than 150 Ukrainian diplomats, including the Foreign Ministry’s official spokesman, issued a statement recognising Mr Yushchenko and saying: “We cannot silently watch these developments when Ukraine’s commitment to democracy is put in doubt and it faces the threat of international isolation.”

“We are sliding towards the abyss,” Volodymyr Lytvyn, the Speaker of the parliament, said. Mr Yushchenko and his allies appealed to “the parliaments and nations of the world to bolster the will of the Ukrainian people”. Among the first to respond was Vaclav Havel, the former Czech President and the symbol of Prague’s Velvet Revolution.

“Let me greet you in these dramatic days when the fate of your country for many years to come is at stake,” Mr Havel said in a message to the Ukrainian Opposition. “All respectable local and international organisations agree that your demands are just.”

The White House escalated its differences with the Kremlin, vowing to stand with the Ukrainian people. President Bush’s spokesman said Washington was “deeply disturbed” with the indications of fraud and warned Ukrainian authorities not to certify election results “until investigations of organised fraud are resolved”.

He called on the Ukrainian government to “respect the will of the Ukrainian people”, adding: “The Government bears a special responsibility not to use or incite violence, and to allow free media to report accurately on the situation without intimidation or coercion.”

Russia in turn accused the US of “unprecedented interference” and the EU of inciting violence. Russia’s President Putin, who has already telephoned Mr Yanukovich to congratulate him on his victory, declared that “Ukraine doesn’t need to be lectured”. Ukraine was plunged into turmoil after Sunday’s official results gave Mr Yanukovych an unassailable lead, despite exit polls suggesting the reverse.

Mr Yushchenko accused the Government of massive electoral fraud, triggering an extraordinary confrontation between Western-backed Ukrainian reformists who see their future in Europe and the Soviet-schooled ruling elite who still have close ties to the Kremlin.

There was no word yesterday from Mr Yanukovych, who has dismissed his rival as a Western puppet. But the outgoing President, Leonid Kuchma, broke two days of public silence to urge the two candidates to hold talks. Kiev and four other cities in western Ukraine — Lviv, Ternopil, Vinnytsia and Ivano-Frankivsk — have refused to recognise the official results.

But the regional government of Donetsk, Mr Yanukovych’s main support base in the east, denounced the protests in Kiev and the city’s miners threatened to march on the capital to back Mr Yanukovych.The regional parliament of Crimea declared Mr Yanukovych the new President.

WHAT THEY SAID

“East and West may do battle over Ukraine, but the geopolitical realities make it essential for both spheres to contribute to its development”: El Pais, Spain

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