KIEV: Embattled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich has said he has no intention of resigning or leaving Ukraine, saying all decisions taken by parliament on Saturday were illegal.

“The decisions they are taking today are illegitimate. They must hear this from me – I do not intend to sign anything,” Yanukovych told a local television station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Yanukovich compared the situation in Ukraine to Germany in the 1930s, when Nazi leader Adolf Hitler came to power.

Yanukovich also said his car had come under fire but showed no signs of injury in the television interview.

“My car was shot at. I am not afraid. I feel sorrow for mycountry,” he told UBR television and Internet outlet.

He also called his opponents gangsters who were terrorising the country and said he would now travel through southeast Ukraine meeting people.

The comments by the embattled president come as protesters seized his Kiev office on Saturday, as the pro-Russian leader's grip on power rapidly eroded following bloodshed in the Ukrainian capital.

Parliament voted to free his arch-rival, jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Her daughter said Tymoshenko was already free under Ukrainian law but still in the hospital where she has been held for treatment.

The newly-installed interior minister declared that the police were now behind the protesters they had fought for days, giving central Kiev the look of a war zone with 77 people killed, while central authority crumbled in western Ukraine.

At the president's headquarters, Ostap Kryvdyk, who described himself as a protest commander, said some protesters had entered the offices but there was no looting. “We will guard the building until the next president comes,” he told Reuters. “Yanukovich will never be back.”

The grounds of Yanukovich's residence outside Kiev were also being guarded by “self-defence” militia of protesters.

The quick disintegration of Yanukovich's government marked a setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had counted on the Ukrainian leader to bring Ukraine into a Eurasian Union to help rebuild as much of the old Soviet Union as possible.

The government, still led by a Yanukovich ally, said it would ensure a smooth handover of power to a new administration.