President Viktor Yanukovych and Ukrainian opposition leaders signed a deal yesterday which will lead to early presidential elections this year.

The agreement provides for a national unity government, electoral reform and constitutional changes reducing the president’s power.

Compromise came under huge pressure from European Union foreign ministers.

The agreement was signed by President Yanukovych and opposition leaders Vitali Klitschko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk and far-right Svoboda party boss Oleh Tyahnibok.

While the agreement offered the protesters almost everything they had publicly demanded, some right-wing elements immediately rejected it and demanded that the president step down immediately.

Far-right nationalist group the Right Sector dismissed the deal, with leader Dmytro Yarosh saying that since the president’s statement contained “no firm pledges” that he would resign or parliament would be dissolved, “the national revolution continues.”

Protesters showed little sign of leaving Kiev’s Independence Square after the announcement and were still there in their thousands hours after the document was signed.

It remained unclear whether they would abide by their leaders’ agreement.

Following a night in which at least 77 died and hundreds more were injured, Kiev was comparatively quiet yesterday afternoon.

But EU politicians’ quick praise of the agreement in displays of sombre statesmanship did not ring true after EU mediator and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski let the cat out of the bag when he said on Twitter that the agreement “opens the way for reform and to Europe.”