Ukrainian MPs today voted to annul a package of repressive laws that provoked the worst peacetime violence in the country’s history when they were pushed through parliament 12 days ago.

The U-turn by the ruling bloc in today’s emergency session of parliament is not in itself enough to placate protesters who have spent two months on the streets, but it is the first clear proof that President Yanukovych is serious about trying to find a way out of the crisis.

The vote to repeal nine of the 11 laws passed by an overwhelming show of hands on January 16, which protesters had taken to calling the “Dictatorship Laws”, came after Mykola Azarov, the Prime Minister, resigned before the start of the session in the Verkhovna