Ukraine has no choice but to increase military spending to strengthen the country's defense capabilities, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said.
“I think you all understand that we have no other choice but to increase military appropriations,” he said in an extraordinary address on Ukraine’s domestic and international situation at the Verkhovna Rada on Thursday.
“Reform of the defense sector – the army, security services and the defense sector – should be part of tectonic changes. The entire world believed too much in the prospect of peace, and we believed too early in eternal peace – now we are reaping the bitter fruits of someone else’s aggressiveness and our own irresponsible pacifism,” he said.
Poroshenko recalled that the Verkhovna Rada would very soon consider the draft state budget for 2015.
“I hope for our cooperation, patriotism, and I hope that today we will be able to give a proper response, including in the budget, to these threats. There are so many foreign troops around our borders like a swarm of locusts, and in the next few years Ukraine will count, first and foremost, on the combat capability of its own armed forces,” he said.
“To do this we must first invest finances and efforts in rearming and resupplying our troops with high-precision weapons, modern means of reconnaissance and communications, new armor, as well as upgrade and increase the number of combat aircraft,” he said.
He also said that in order to ensure the rhythmic financing of the country’s military sphere the state defense order would be planned for at least three years, not just for a year.
