Ukraine will not introduce martial law in the country's embattled eastern region of Donbas in the wake of the assassination of the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Alexander Zakharchenko, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Monday.
KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd September, 2018) Ukraine will not introduce martial law in the country's embattled eastern region of Donbas in the wake of the assassination of the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Alexander Zakharchenko, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Monday.
Zakharchenko was killed in a bomb blast in a cafe in Donetsk's city center on Friday. The explosion also claimed the life of Zakharchenko's bodyguard and injured 11 people, as claimed by local authorities. According to DPR investigators, several people, who had already been detained on suspicions of carrying out the attack, said that the attack was organized by Kiev.
"It was very difficult for me to make this decision and defend it in parliament. We are not introducing martial law because the values of democracy have the same importance for us as the values of sovereignty. And I trust the Ukrainian nation, the Ukrainian people. We will be able to overcome military difficulties without imposing restrictions on democracy," Poroshenko said in Kiev.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Zakharchenko's murder demonstrated that those who chose terror as their strategy did not want to peacefully resolve the conflict in the region.
The Russian Foreign Ministry and DPR officials have claimed that Kiev was behind the assassination. Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) chief Vasyl Hrytsak said on Saturday that Kiev had not sent any subversive groups to set off the deadly explosion.
The armed conflict between Kiev and the self-proclaimed people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk broke out in 2014 following the overthrow of then President Viktor Yanukovych and the republics' refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the new government. The Normandy Four group comprising France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine has been trying to reconcile the two sides and reached a ceasefire agreement in 2015, however, both parties have repeatedly accused each other of breaching the truce.
In February 2018, Poroshenko signed the so-called Donbas reintegration law, which the self-proclaimed republics have claimed would allow the president to introduce martial law in the region.
