KIEV - Ukraine’s first post-independence president has warned the country is on the "brink of civil war” as parliament debates an amnesty for protesters.

Leonid Kravchuk, president from 1991 to 1994, opened the debate in parliament by urging everyone involved to "act with the greatest responsibility”.

President Viktor Yanukovych wants any amnesty to be conditional on protesters leaving official buildings - a proposal rejected by the opposition.

Opponents want Mr Yanukovych to resign. Hundreds of anti-government protesters - many wearing helmets and carrying baseball bats and other makeshift weapons - have taken to the streets in Kiev again, a BBC correspondent in the city reports.

They won significant concessions on Tuesday after parliament scrapped a controversial anti-protest law and Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and his cabinet resigned.

Leonid Kravchuk told MPs that "all the world acknowledges and Ukraine acknowledges that the state is on the brink of civil war”.

"It is a revolution. It is a dramatic situation in which we must act with the greatest responsibility,” he said in an emotional address that earned him a standing ovation.

"We need to ease the confrontation between the sides and agree a plan to solve the conflict. We need to work on this plan step by step to ease the confrontation.”

Agencies