Kiev, Ukraine (CNN) -- Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych
appeared to be gone from the capital Saturday, a day after he signed a landmark
peace deal with the opposition aimed at bringing an end to days of bloody
protests.
Change appeared to be gripping
the country.
At the presidential residence in
a Kiev suburb, groundskeepers and gate personnel kept watch over living quarters
that were vacant.
Gone were the Ukrainian
President's guards. And opposition leader Vitali Klitschko said Yanukovych had
left town, a day after European Union leaders helped hammer out the peace
agreement.
"Unfortunately, President
Yanukovych who did not hear the people has withdrawn from his constitutional
duties himself. And today he has already left the capital. Millions of citizens
see only one option in the current situation -- it is calling the early
presidential election," Klitschko said Saturday.
The President's residence,
government buildings, protest gatherings and the central city were devoid of
police and of security forces that had opened fire on protesters this week,
dropping many dozens of them to the ground.
As a CNN crew drove to
Yanukovych's residence, it passed checkpoints set up by protesters.
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When the crew arrived, the
gatekeepers said they were not allowing the general public onto the grounds, but
they let journalists enter. The civil servants asked that the reporters treat
his home as a crime scene.
Both of the President's two
living quarter buildings were empty, the crew saw, as it inspected the
grounds.
When the civil servants spoke of
the home, they referred to it as being the "people's residence" once more.
At present, Yanukovych's
whereabouts are unclear.
A senior U.S. State Department
official said Yanukovych had left Kiev for Ukraine's second's largest city of
Kharkiv, in the east, for a meeting after Friday's peace agreement. The
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, had been on the phone with
Ukraine's foreign minister.
That's "not unusual," the
official said.
Yanukovych has strong support in
the East, where many ethnic Russians live. The raging opposition he faces was
triggered by his loyalty to Russia and a decision in November to turn away from
a deal with the European Union.
In many parts of Ukraine, people
have toppled statues of former Russian communist leader Vladimir Lenin, a
founder of the Soviet Union. The communist empire had included Ukraine, and the
country gained independence after the USSR fell.
Resignation
push
In the Rada, Ukraine's
parliament, one of Yanukovych's chief opponents took the podium to call for him
to be pushed from office as soon as possible and steamroll change.
The Rada passed a resolution to
free Yulia Tymoshenko, the jailed former Prime Minister and a hero of the
country's 2004 revolution. It isn't clear whether the move is legally
binding.
Despite the vote, Tymoshenko is
still at the Kharkiv prison hospital, her spokeswoman, Natalia Lysova, told CNN
Saturday.
The case against her is widely
considered in the West to have been politically motivated.
Klitschko, of the opposition
UDAR party, urged lawmakers to enact a resolution urging the President
immediately to resign and calling for early presidential elections to be held by
May 25.
Key Yanukovych allies left
office, and the presidential duties were handed off, until a new Cabinet is
selected.
During the session, resignations
were announced for the speaker of parliament and another leading presidential
ally.
Hours later, parliament elected
a new speaker, one of Yanukovych's most determined rivals, and gave him the duty
of coordinating the executive office until a new Cabinet is in place.
Another opposition
parliamentarian received the duties of acting Interior Minister.
The Rada sacked Yanukovych's
prosecutor general.
Friday's
deal
In Ukraine, neither protesters,
opposition politicians nor the embattled President had gotten all of what they
wanted from the deal after a week of bloodshed.
Enthusiasm was muted for the
peace deal brokered among them a day before by the foreign ministers of Poland,
Germany and France.
Hours before they signed the
deal, Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski warned them not to expect
perfection.
"All sides need to remember that
compromise means getting less than 100%," he said in a message on Twitter.
The deal takes away many of
Yanukovych's powers soon -- and his office completely, before the year is up.
That wasn't soon enough for some.
Protesters who occupied Kiev's
Maidan, or Independence Square, for months and watched many dozens of fellow
demonstrators die this week had wanted him out of office.
If the President has fled, that
wish may have already been fulfilled.
And on Friday, the Rada, rolled
up its sleeves to implement the agreement.
First, they tackled the section
designed to limit the President's power and roll back the Constitution to what
it had been in 2004.
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The deal also requires
presidential elections "as soon as the new Constitution is adopted but no later
than December 2014."
They also called for an
investigation into this week's violence and handed police, per the agreement,
more restrictions on the use of force. Over the weekend, protesters are also to
turn in their illegal weapons and withdraw from streets and public
buildings.
Grief,
anger
Early Saturday, a large crowd
gathered in the square for funeral ceremonies.
The night before, after the deal
was announced, demonstrators held a procession to remember their dead that
night. Pallbearers carried coffins over the heads of a throng of people holding
up lights in their honor.
Pavel, a demonstrator who
identified himself only by his first name, said he'd helped carry away people
with bullet wounds Thursday, when protesters died en masse after shots rang
out.
Pavel said on Friday that he
won't forget his fallen compatriots, nor will he give up the fight.
"As long as (Yanukovych) is
president," he said, "the movement will continue."
But other protesters showed some
support for the deal. Its announcement before the crowd at Independence Square
on Friday drew some cheers.
And when Klitschko, who has
acted a spokesman for the movement, took the stage Friday, he got a notably
frostier reception.
He contended that the government
was trying to divide the protesters with the deal.
He walked off to a handful of
jeers.
Discord's
roots
The wave of unrest began in
November, when Yanukovych scrapped a European Union trade deal and turned toward
Russia.
The country is ethnically split,
with many ethnic Russians living in the East. The rest of the country comprises
mostly ethnic Ukrainians.
Russia, which has offered to
lend money to cash-strapped Ukraine in a deal worth billions of dollars and to
lower its gas prices, has put pressure on Yanukovych to crack down on
demonstrators.
Western leaders, who have
offered Ukraine a more long-term aid package requiring economic modernization,
urged the President to show restraint, open up the government to the opposition
and let the democratic process work out deep-seated political differences.
But the fight was also about
corruption and control. The opposition called Yanukovych heavy-handed, with
Klitschko and others saying protesters wouldn't leave Maidan until he
resigned.
Tensions boiled over Tuesday,
when security forces charged into a Kiev crowd with stun grenades, nightsticks
and armored personnel carriers. At least 26 people -- protesters and police
alike -- were killed.
Late Wednesday, the government
announced a truce.
But on Thursday, protesters
pursued police as they withdrew. Security forces fired back, sending dozens of
protesters tumbling to the ground.
Then came the landmark agreement
Friday.
