KIEV, June 19./ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko has promised to make public his plan of peace settlement of the conflict in the country’s southeastern regions on Friday, June 20.

“The president’s peace plan will be officially presented tomorrow,” he said on Thursday. Earlier the president offered to cease fire unilaterally in the east of the country. 

“The peaceful plan begins with my order for a unilateral ceasefire. Immediately after this, we should gain support of a presidential peaceful plan from all participants in the events in Donbass (the main Ukrainian coalmining region). For a very brief period of time,” Poroshenko said.

“The time of ceasefire will be very short, and illegal armed units should lay down arms, and order should be established in the region for this period of time,” the president added.

He also noted the strength of the Ukrainian army had been undermined systematically for many years. “We faced the war with naked, barefoot and unarmed soldiers,” the president said, assuring military officials present at the meeting that Ukraine would win in this war. 

 

Military equipment for Ukrainian army

Afterwards, the Ukrainian government has allocated almost 200 million hryvnias ($16.8 million) to the Interior Ministry to purchase military equipment and personal armor for the ministry’s personnel and the National Guard.

The ministry will use the funds to buy Ukraine-made BTR-E armored personnel carriers, as well as body armor and individual active defense gear such as KWM-02 all-purpose armor vests and WZ2005 composite combat helmets.

The Interior Ministry will also purchase clothing, items for the food service and camouflaged field uniforms.

 

Ukraine in new type of war

Poroshenko noted that his country is in a state of what he described as a new type of war.

“Ukraine is in a state of war. This is a new type of war,” the president said, adding that both volunteers and mercenaries were taking part in it.

He declared a policy of comprehensive build-up of the national armed forces.

“The Ukrainian army will be number one priority for me, for the Ukrainian government, for the Ukrainian budget and for the population,” Poroshenko said at a graduation ceremony at Defense Ministry University.

At the same time, fire was opened on an old church in Sloviansk on Thursday. One man was killed. The Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Alexander Borodai had noted earlier that “Poroshenko’s statement is absurd.” He recalled that the interim acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov had earlier proposed personally to sign a ceasefire agreement but encroached on it himself later