KIEV, September 10. /ITAR-TASS/. A bill on decentralization of power in certain districts of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions will be submitted to Ukraine’s parliament next week, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
“The bill does not have a word about DPR and LPR (self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics), everything will go back to Ukraine,” Poroshenko said. “We do not accept federalization.”
Poroshenko confirmed that at present, Ukrainian troops were regrouping in the country’s east for defense, he said.
Ukraine should fortify its territory along “the lines of direct combat with militants” in the east, he said, adding that the country should prefer fortifications that “modern defense science demands” to building constructions like those erected in 1941-1945. “No-one will fight for Ukraine in our territory,” he said. “We will bear the brunt.”
At the same time, the president did not exclude the possibility of imposing a special regime in districts neighboring the area of military operations in Ukraine’s east, including the “organization of guerrilla movement.”
Threat of war could make the defense industry a locomotive for restoring the country’s economy. “The economy without reforms is too weak to win,” he said, announcing that Ukraine’s defense plants were working in three shifts, providing the army with nearly 30 units of hardware every day.
“Ukraine needs to step up its reforms. Outdated instructions should not determine the army’s demands,” he said.