People listen to speeches in front of a statue in Independence Square in Kiev February 21, 2014. 
 
 KIEV Ukraine's parliament on Friday voted heavily in favor of an unconditional amnesty for all those detained or who might face possible prosecution in the current unrest. 
 
 The amnesty, which means all charges will be dropped against people detained or who might fear arrest for participating in protests, was part of an EU-brokered agreement signed between President Viktor Yanukovich and opposition leaders to end a protracted crisis. 
 
 (Writing By Richard Balmforth; Editing by Timothy Heritage) ||||| Except for a series of loud explosions on Friday night and angry chants in the protest encampment, Kiev was generally quiet. And the authorities, although previously divided about how to handle the crisis, seemed eager to avoid more confrontations. By late in the afternoon, all police officers had vacated the government district of the capital, leaving behind burned military trucks, mattresses and heaps of garbage at the positions they had occupied for months. 
 
 In Independence Square, the focal point of the protest movement, however, the mood was one of deep anger and determination, not triumph. “Get out criminal! Death to the criminal!” the crowd chanted, reaffirming what, after a week of bloody violence, has become a nonnegotiable demand for many protesters: the immediate departure of Mr. Yanukovych. 
 
 When Vitali Klitschko, one of the three opposition leaders who signed the deal, spoke in its defense, people screamed “shame!” A coffin was then hauled on a stage in the square to remind Mr. Klitschko of the more than 70 people who died during violence on Thursday, the most lethal day of political mayhem in Ukraine since independence from the Soviet Union more than 22 years ago. 
 
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 The violence escalated the urgency of the crisis, which began with protests in late November after a decision by Mr. Yanukovych to spurn a trade and political deal with the European Union and tilt his nation toward Russia instead. 
 
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 It was difficult to know how much of the fury voiced on Friday night in Independence Square was fiery bravado, a final cry of anger before the three-month-long protest movement winds down or the harbinger of yet more and possibly worse violence to come. 
 
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 Vividly clear, however, was the wide gulf that had opened up between the opposition’s political leadership and a street movement that has radicalized and slipped far from the already tenuous control of politicians. 
 
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 Mr. Klitschko was interrupted by an angry radical who did not give his name but said he was the leader of a group of fighters, known as a hundred. 
 
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 “We gave chances to politicians to become future ministers, presidents, but they don’t want to fulfill one condition — that the criminal go away!” he said, vowing to lead an armed attack if Mr. Yanukovych did not announce his resignation by 10 a.m. on Saturday. The crowd shouted: “Yes! Yes!” 
 
 Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of Right Sector, a coalition of hard-line nationalist groups, reacted defiantly to news of the settlement, drawing more cheers from the crowd. 
 
 “The agreements that were reached do not correspond to our aspirations,” he said. “Right Sector will not lay down arms. Right Sector will not lift the blockade of a single administrative building until our main demand is met — the resignation of Yanukovych.” 
 
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 He added that he and his supporters were “ready to take responsibility for the further development of the revolution.” The crowd shouted: “Good! Good!” 
 
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 Previous settlements and truces have all broken down, engulfed by wild bursts of violence on the streets of the capital, Kiev, and unrest in other parts of the country, particularly western regions where antigovernment sentiment has always been strong. 
 
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 Eric Fournier, France’s representative at the talks, cautioned that Friday’s deal was “a beginning, not an end.”
– Ukraine's newly empowered parliament has voted to allow the release of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko after more than two years in prison. Legislators voted 310-54 to decriminalize the count under which she was imprisoned, meaning that she is no longer guilty of a criminal offense. "Free Yulia! Free Yulia!" legislators chanted after the vote. It was not immediately clear when she might be released from the eastern city of Kharkiv where she is serving her sentence. As part of today's deal between President Viktor Yanukovich and opposition leaders, the parliament also granted unconditional amnesty to detained protesters, notes Reuters. It seems to bode well for an end to the recent violence, but the New York Times raise two big caveats: Russia hasn't backed the deal, and many protesters continue to demand the resignation of Yanukovich.