Opposition icon rallies protesters in Kiev

KIEV, Ukraine -- Hours after her release from prison, former Ukrainian prime minister and opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko appeared before an ecstatic throng at the protester encampment in Ukraine's capital Saturday, praising the demonstrators killed in violence this week and urging the protesters to keep occupying the square.

A coffin with the body of a protester killed in recent clashes is carried through the crowd Saturday in central Kiev, Ukraine. (Efrem Lukatsky ~ Associated Press)

Her speech to the crowd of about 50,000, made from a wheelchair because of the severe back problems she suffered in 2 1/2 years of imprisonment, was the latest development in a fast- moving Ukrainian political crisis.

Only a day earlier, her archrival, President Viktor Yanukovych, signed an agreement with protest leaders that cut his powers and called for early elections. Parliament, once controlled by Yanukovych supporters, quickly thereafter voted to decriminalize the abuse-of-office charge for which Tymoshenko was convicted.

Yanukovych, meanwhile, appeared to lose power by the hour. He decamped from Kiev to Kharkiv, a city in his support base in eastern Ukraine, while protesters took control of the presidential administration building and thousands of curious and contemptuous Ukrainians roamed the suddenly-open grounds of the lavish compound outside Kiev where he was thought to live.

In Kharkiv, Yanukovych declared he regarded parliament's actions as invalid and likened the demonstrators who conducted three months of protests against him to Nazis.

"Everything that is happening today is, to a greater degree, vandalism and banditry and a coup d'etat," he said. "I will do everything to protect my country from breakup, to stop bloodshed."

The reversal of fortune for Tymoshenko and Yanukovych was an eerie echo of the Orange Revolution a decade ago -- mass protests that forced a rerun of a presidential election nominally won by Yanukovych. Tymoshenko attracted world attention as the most vivid of the protest leaders, her blond peasant braid making her instantly recognizable.

On Saturday, Tymoshenko appeared close to exhaustion and her voice cracked frequently, but her flair for vivid words was undimmed.

"You are heroes, you are the best thing in Ukraine!" she said of those killed in the violence. The Health Ministry on Saturday said the death toll in clashes between protesters and police that included sniper attacks had reached 82.

She urged the demonstrators not to yield from their encampment in the square, known in Ukrainian as the Maidan.

"In no case do you have the right to leave the Maidan until you have concluded everything that you planned to do," she said.

After the 2004 protests helped bring Viktor Yushchenko to the presidency, Tymoshenko became prime minister. But when Yanukovych won the 2010 election, Tymoshenko was arrested and put on trial for abuse of office, an action widely seen as political revenge.

Her call for protests to continue and Yanukovych's defiance leaves unsettled the fate of Ukraine, a nation of 46 million of strategic importance to Russia, Europe and the United States.

The country's western regions, angered by corruption in Yanukovych's government, want to be closer to the European Union and have rejected Yanukovych's authority in many cities. Eastern Ukraine, which accounts for the bulk of the nation's economic output, favors closer ties with Russia and has largely supported the president. The three-month protest movement was prompted by the president's decision to abort an agreement with the EU in favor of a deal with Moscow.

"The people have won, because we fought for our future," said opposition leader Vitali Klitschko to a crowd of thousands gathered on Kiev's Independence Square. Beneath a cold, heavy rain, protesters who have stood for months to pressure the president to leave congratulated each other and shouted "Glory to Ukraine!"

"It is only the beginning of the battle," Klitschko said, urging calm and telling protesters not to take justice into their own hands.

The president's support base crumbled further. Oleh Slobodyan, a spokesman for the border guard service, said Kharkiv regional governor Mikhaylo Dobkin and Kharkiv Mayor Hennady Kernes left Ukraine across the Russian border.

Saturday's developments were the result of a European-brokered peace deal between the president and opposition.

But Yanukovych said Saturday he would not sign any of the measures passed by parliament over the past two days as a result of that deal. They include motions:

* Saying the president removed himself from power;

* Setting new elections for May 25 instead of next year;

* Trimming the president's powers;

* Naming a new interior minister after firing the old one Friday;

* Releasing Tymoshenko.

The decisions were passed with large majorities, including yes votes from some members of Yanukovych's Party of Regions, which dominated Ukraine's political scene until recently but is swiftly losing support.

Russia came out Saturday against the peace deal, saying the opposition isn't holding up its end of the agreement, which calls for protesters to surrender arms and abandon their tent camps.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called German, French and Polish counterparts and urged them to use their influence with the Ukrainian opposition to stop what he described as rampages by its supporters. European officials urged calm.

Ukraine's defense and military officials also called for Ukrainians to stay peaceful. In statements Saturday, both the Defense Ministry and the chief of the armed forces said they will not be drawn into any conflict and will side with the people. But they did not specify whether they still support the president or are with the opposition.

In Kharkiv, governors, provincial officials and legislators gathered alongside top Russian lawmakers and issued a statement saying that the events in Kiev have led to the "paralysis of the central government and destabilization of the situation in the country."

Some called for the formation of volunteer militias to defend against protesters from western regions, even as they urged army units to maintain neutrality and protect ammunition depots.

Anti-government protesters around the country took out their anger on statues of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, using ropes and crowbars to knock them off pedestals in several cities and towns. Statues of Lenin still stand across the former USSR, and they are seen as a symbol of Moscow's rule.

The past week has seen the worst violence in Ukraine since the breakup of the Soviet Union a quarter-century ago. At Independence Square Saturday, protesters heaped flowers on the coffins of the dead.

"These are heroes of Ukraine who gave their lives so that we could live in a different country without Yanukovych," said protester Viktor Fedoruk, 32. "Their names will be written in golden letters in the history of Ukraine."

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Maria Danilova and Yuras Karmanau in Kiev and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.