The previous Ukrainian authorities intentionally provoked a confrontation between protesters and law enforcement agencies outside Verkhovna Rada on February 18, 2014, to justify the launch of an anti-terrorist operation against protestors which had been planned since January in the same year, the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) of Ukraine has said.

"There was a plan on February 18 by force, with the use of firearms, to disperse the rally at the Verkhovna Rada to provoke a degree of confrontation between the law enforces and protesters to give justification for an anti-terrorist operation, which according to the investigators, was planned from beginning of January," head of the Special Investigations Unit of the Main Investigation Department of the PGO Serhiy Horbatiuk said at a briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.

He said that law enforcers used weapons loaded with hunting bullets, which are not used by law enforcement agencies and were received secretly, on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) before February 20, 2014.

"On February 20, regular firearms was used by enforces, namely Kalashnikov guns," he said.

He said that 49 people were killed and 157 were injured, including 68 with gun shot wounds, on Instytutska Street on February 20.

Moreover, the PGO said that as a result of the clashes outside Verkhovna Rada from 10:00 until 14:00 on February 18, 2014, ten persons were killed, 509 received injuries. Three persons were killed with gun shots, and 34 were wounded by gun shots.