Three months after the outbreak of demonstrations in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, over Mr. Yanukovych’s decision to spurn a trade deal with Europe and tilt toward Russia, power has shifted decisively here in the western half of this divided country, where the president has never had much support.

Seeking to ease a volatile stalemate in the capital, the authorities in Kiev on Friday said they had freed all 234 people who had been arrested, mostly for taking part in violent clashes last month with the police.

The opposition has also sought to ease tensions, with a leading opposition party, Svoboda, saying on Saturday that it was ready to end its occupation of Kiev City Hall. But other groups like Right Sector, a coalition of hard-line forces with deep roots in western Ukraine, said seized buildings should remain occupied until Mr. Yanukovych resigned and all criminal proceedings against protesters were halted.

In sharp contrast to Kiev, where the Soviet-built center of the city has been taken over by noisy protesters and throbs night and day to the din of fiery speeches and chants for Mr. Yanukovych to step down, there are few outward signs of turmoil on Lviv’s cobblestone streets. The architecture traces the city’s past, from the colonnaded relics of the Hapsburg Empire, to the mansions of long-gone Polish nobles and the homes of vanished Jewish and Armenian traders.

The state, its administration under siege, is having trouble paying pensions and other welfare payments but the police patrol the streets and even Mr. Salo, the widely detested governor, says he can walk around the city without fear.