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Ukrainian president exempts military from lustration

Lustration measures will no longer be applied to senior officers who used to occupy posts at the Interior Ministry, Security Service, Defense Ministry or the Ukrainian Armed Forces

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko Konstantin Cherginsky/TASS

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko

© Konstantin Cherginsky/TASS

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KIEV, January 30 /TASS/. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a bill exempting the military from lustration into law, the parliamentary website reported on Friday.

The bill was adopted by 241 votes out of the required minimum of 226.

Under the law, lustration measures will no longer be applied to senior officers who used to occupy posts at Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, Ukraine’s Security Service, the Defense Ministry and the Ukrainian Armed Forces if that is necessary for ensuring the country’s defense capability on condition that they submit an application to the president of Ukraine.

President Poroshenko has already returned the lustrated Colonel General Gennady Vorobyov, commander of Ukrainian land forces, to the army and has restored him in the post of first deputy chief of staff.

Ukraine’s defense minister dismissed Colonel General Vorobyov from the army under the lustration law on October 25, 2014.

Additional mobilization measures

President Poroshenko also signed a decree on additional mobilization measures in 2015, the presidential press service reported on Friday.

"The president ordered the cabinet of ministers to regulate the order of travelling abroad for men of conscription age," the press service said adding the government would also consider the rules of discharging the military from the army for the period of mobilization in order to ensure the personnel’s rotation.

The document suggests the creation of a doctrine of social protection and rehabilitation of people who were hurt while fulfilling their military duties.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office has introduced stricter punishment for violating Ukraine’s mobilization laws, including corruption at military commissariats.

Ukrainian Army General Staff has ordered military commissariats to draw up lists of draft dodgers and hand them over to police who will search for those unwilling to serve in the army.

About 50,000 Ukrainians are to be drafted into the army under a fourth round of mobilization that kicked off on January 20. Sixty-two thousand people have already received draft notices. The next rounds of mobilization are expected in April and June.

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Ukraine crisis Pyotr Poroshenko

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