Thousands of people gathered in Kyiv's main square on Sunday to protest President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's deal with Moscow to grant autonomy to Ukraine's pro-Russian rebel-held east as part of efforts to end a five-year conflict there.

In the first breakthrough toward a possible peace deal in years, envoys from Moscow and Kyiv agreed at talks on Tuesday on an election schedule for the Donbass region and on legislation giving it special status. Ukraine also agreed to call back its forces from the current contact line with separatist fighters.

But for many Ukrainians, these measures represent a huge betrayal by Zelenskiy, who took power in April after a landslide election win. The war in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 13,000 people since April 2014.