Ukraine will impose martial law if the situation in eastern Ukraine deteriorates and tensions with Russian Federation over Crimea escalate, President Petro Poroshenko said during a visit to the Lviv region on August 18.
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“The likelihood of the conflict’s escalation remains very high”, he said in televised remarks from the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Russian Federation has accused Ukraine of being behind alleged attacks on its soldiers in Crimea, with Ukraine rejecting the allegations and holding Russian Federation responsible for a fresh wave of attacks against its forces. Ukraine flatly denied the allegations calling them “fantasies”. He added that he could “not exclude a full-scale Russian invasion [of Ukraine] along all fronts”.
European Union president Donald Tusk on Wednesday said he and the Ukrainian leader both believed Russia’s account of recent events in the battle-scarred east and Crimea was “unreliable”. According to the United Nations data, more than 9,500 people have fallen victim to the conflict. The conflict has left approximately 10,000 dead and displaced over 1.4 million.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko addresses servicemen of the 16th separate army aviation brigade and relatives of pilots.
It was not clear whether martial law, if declared, would be limited to some parts or the whole of the country.
Ukraine said on Thursday that pro-Russian rebels had killed three of its soldiers in the worst violence seen in the separatist east for a year.
“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 said, Reuters reported.
In comments carried by the French news agency, Motuzyanyk said the rebels “launched more than 500 mortar and over 300 artillery shells” at Ukrainian positions.
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“The last time we witnessed a similar intensity of fire using heavy armaments was a year ago”, he told reporters in Kiev.
