Governor in west Ukraine resigns after protesters storm offices

(LVIV) - The governor of Ukraine's western Lviv region resigned on Thursday after anti-government protesters shouting "revolution" stormed his offices.

Around one thousand protesters had held a demonstration outside the offices of Lviv region governor Oleg Salo, calling for his resignation as part of the anti-government protests sweeping Ukraine.

They pushed past the guards and stormed the building and went through its corridors in search of Salo, an AFP correspondent in the regional capital Lviv said.

Salo was not in his office but the protesters later found him and surrounded him, saying they would not depart until he resigned.

The governor, who was appointed by embattled President Viktor Yanukovych, then signed his resignation and handed it to the protesters.

"I ask to be freed of my duties," he said in the document.

The Kiev-appointed governor was an unpopular figure in Lviv and its region, a Ukrainian speaking area which is hugely supportive of the protest movement.

Thousands of people from the Lviv region have gone to Kiev to take part in the rallies on Independence Square.

Similar protest actions aiming to remove governors were also under way in Ivano-Frankivsk and Rivne, which like Lviv are regions of western Ukraine where Yanukovych garnered very little support when he was elected in 2010.