Several thousand protesters who remained on the square after dawn cheered as police drove away.
“This is a great victory,” Arseny Yatsenyuk, a top opposition leader, shouted from the stage.
Throughout the standoff the police appeared to be under orders to refrain from using excessive force, unlike the violent beatings of protesters in recent weeks.
Several demonstrators and police were injured, but the policeman helped injured activists up from the ground and moved them away.
The protests began in late November when Yanukovych backed away from a pact that would deepen the former Soviet republic's economic ties with the 28-nation European Union—a pact that surveys showed was supported by nearly half the country's people.
The agreement would make Ukraine more Western-oriented and represent a significant loss of face for Russia, which has either controlled or heavily influenced Ukraine for centuries.
Demonstrators who gathered during the night waved EU and Ukrainian flags and sang the national anthem.. Many of the protesters, wearing orange construction hats to protect themselves from police truncheons, locked arms and simultaneously jumped up and down to stay warm in freezing temperatures that plunged to 12 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 11 Celsius).