During a televised speech from the western Lviv region on Thursday, August 18, the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko declared that “if the situation escalates in the east and in Crimea we don’t rule out the possibilities that we will be forced to introduce martial law and announce a further mobilization”. Poroshenko didn’t clarify if the introduction of martial law will concern the whole country or only a few eastern regions. According to the Constitution of Ukraine, President’s decision to introduce martial law has to be approved by the Ukrainian Parliament

Since 2014, Poroshenko announced several waves of mobilization of the military to fight pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukraine. Moreover, he hinted several times at the introduction of martial law, but ultimately it was not implemented.

Poroshenko’s statement about the introduction of martial law was made in response to Russian actions in Crimea, namely the deployment of modern military technology by Russia and the start oflarge military exercises. Moreover, the situation on the Kiev-Moscow line is very tense due to the allegations made by the Kremlin about Ukrainian terrorist activities.

The Minsk cease-fire agreement between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatist is increasingly fragile. The OSCE mission, which is responsible for monitoring compliance with the agreement, pointed to the high number of violations in recent times in the east of Ukraine. UN expressed alert over a worrying rise in the number of victims in the east of Ukraine and appealed to the parties to the conflict to respect the Minsk agreement.

Read more (Reuters)
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