Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called for stricter punishments for smuggling across the state border and the contact line in Donbas.
“It is necessary to speed up the work on amendments to the legislation regulating these issues, in particular in terms of criminalizing certain articles dealing for instance with the illegal movement of excisable goods across the state border and the line of contact,” Poroshenko said on Friday at a meeting with law enforcement agents in Kryvy Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region.
He also told the agents about the approval by the Verkhovna Rada of the amendments to the legislation concerning the procedure for the movement of goods in and out of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) zone. According to the amendments, this procedure will be proposed by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and approved by the Cabinet of Ministers.
In addition, mobile groups of volunteers, border guards, police and tax police officers will receive strong support at the highest level, the president said.
