At one end of Kiev’s protest zone, just inside a makeshift barricade, demonstrators have set up a mock jail with an effigy of President Viktor Yanukovych sitting in a striped convict’s tunic, his arms raised above him in manacles.

In the past few weeks as anti-government protests have grown in intensity, it has become a common spot for a Sunday outing.

Parents send their children to pose for family album snapshots alongside the jailbird.

That Yanukovych could be brought down by the present spasm of street violence and face prosecution for his “crimes” in office might be wishful thinking by his most ardent opponents.

Despite two months of unrest after pulling out of a trade deal with the European Union and moving closer to Russia, there is nothing to suggest that the 63-year-old former construction worker is in danger of falling from power.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday sounded a note of alarm when he admonished European governments for “interfering” in Ukraine’s political crisis, a regular complaint of Moscow.

“The situation is spinning out of control,” he said.

Yanukovych appears to be still in charge of the security forces who are holding back from an all-out offensive against protesters.

There have been no public defections from his camp and the super-wealthy “oligarchs” who bankroll him have not broken ranks.

But nonetheless his options are narrowing as street violence against his rule grows more intense following policy blunders – the latest being the passage of sweeping legislation that bans virtually any form of anti-government protest.

In the worst violence that anyone can remember in Kiev, radical protesters have been battling police day and night near the main government building, lobbing cobblestones, fireworks and sometimes petrol bombs, undeterred by the stun grenades and rubber bullets fired back at them.

Parents send their children to pose for family album snapshots alongside the jailbird

Though a line of three priests kept the two sides apart yesterday in a temporary truce, it seemed only a question of time before violence resumed.

With Ukraine in uncharted territory now, Yanukovych is running out of ways to reclaim control of the streets peacefully, having turned his back on compromise and used the promise of talks with the opposition only to play for time.

He might even declare a state of emergency backed by a curfew, some analysts say, though this option was ruled out by a presidential aide yesterday.

“There will be no declaration of a state of emergency,” Andriy Klyuev, secretary of the National Council of Security and Defence, told journalists in reply to a question.

“The authorities may be expecting – even accidentally – some deaths, which would provide them with a pretext for escalating the conflict. It would be an excuse for decisive action,” said independent analyst Volodymyr Fesenko of the Penta think-tank.

Yanukovych took the unusual move on Sunday night of meeting Vitaly Klitschko, the boxer-turned-politician who has emerged as the leader of the opposition.

The president later promised to set up talks with the opposition to settle the crisis.

But opposition figures dismissed these as an attempt to buy time and say they will believe Yanukovych’s sincerity only when they see him personally at the negotiating table.

“This is Plan B – talks with partial concessions. This is aimed mainly for tactical reasons – to divert the focus of the opposition and drag things out. It’s a support plan,” Fesenko said.

Yesterday, Klitschko said presidential aides turned him away from a second meeting with Yanukovych and he returned to the barricades where priests were overseeing a truce between police and protesters.

“He (Yanukovych) was in a meeting. I am surprised that this meeting was more important than the confrontation which is going on the streets and people’s lives are at risk,” he said.