KIEV, Dec. 16 – Four opposition lawmakers, some with serious injuries and bleeding, were rushed to the hospital late Thursday after allies of President Viktor Yanukovych ferociously attacked the group for blocking podium in Parliament.

The group of about 30 opposition lawmakers blocked the podium Thursday morning in protest of what they call the politically motivated persecution of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

But the Yanukovych allies, in an apparently carefully planned attack, shut the light off in the session hall and, by using pieces of furniture and fists, overwhelmed the opposition.

Mykhaylo Volynets was left with a serious head injury and bleeding, Volodymyr Bondarenko with his arm badly injured, while Yuriy Hnatkevych and Vasyl Kravchuk, both unable to walk on their own, were carried to an ambulance and taken to hospital.

“They broke Volynets’ head with a chair; he’s bleeding. Bondarenko’s arm is broken. Hnatkevych and Kravchuk are in a bad shape,” Andriy Shevchenko, an opposition lawmaker, wrote in his blog.

This is not the first time that opposition and pro-government lawmakers clash in Parliament, but the viciousness of the attack on Thursday has stunned many lawmakers.

The attackers were “simply the beasts. All the same faces,” Shevchenko wrote. “Next time they will attack us with knives.”

“They have been hitting the people like savages with red, bloody eyes,” Stepan Kurpil, an opposition lawmaker, said. “These are not lawmakers. These are bandits.”

Oleh Tsarev, a lawmaker from the Regions Party and one of the most active attackers, said the action was needed to make sure that Parliament can go ahead and approve the 2011 budget on Friday.

“We had to unblock Parliament to ensure its normal work,” Tsarev told reporters. “The country cannot live without the budget.”

The development comes a day after the Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal investigation against Tymoshenko, the leader of the largest opposition party, alleging her government had misused funds from selling carbon dioxide emission allowances in 2009.

The opening of the case has effectively restricted her ability to travel a day before Tymoshenko had planned to attend a summit of the European People’s Party in Brussels.

Tymoshenko, while visiting Brussels, usually takes opportunity to criticize policies of Yanukovych, including the government’s attempts to restrict the freedom of speech.

After one of such trip three months ago, an anonymous caller had warned Tymoshenko that she will “cough up blood” if she continues to criticize Yanukovych on the international arena.

The security service, SBU, controlled by Yanukovych, conducted investigation, but had failed to identify the caller. (tl/ez)