EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton has deplored the use of force by Ukrainian authorities against demonstrators at Independence Square in Kyiv in the early hours of Wednesday.

"Authorities did not need to act under the coverage of night to engage with society by using force," Ashton said in a statement available on the European External Action Service's Twitter.

"Dialogue w/political forces & society & the use of arguments is always better than the argument of force," she tweeted.

"I am still in #Kyiv. I was impressed by your determination demonstrating for the European perspective of #Ukraine," Ashton said.

She said she was "saddened that police used force to remove peaceful people."