Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko warned on Sunday that Ukraine must be ready to defend itself should a peace plan aimed at ending a five-month war with pro-Russian insurgents fall through.
The pro-Western leader’s comments followed a warning by a top defense spokesman that Ukraine would not pull back its forces from the front line as required under a new truce until all sides put down their guns.
Poroshenko delivered an 80-minute televised defense of his high-stakes decision on Tuesday to hand a wedge of the industrial east three years of effective autonomy in return for the rebel-held area remaining a part of Ukraine.
A Sept. 5 ceasefire was reinforced on Saturday in a European-mediated deal signed with separatist leaders and Russia that required all sides to halt fire within 24 hours and set up a 30km demilitarization zone.
Poroshenko had been accused of essentially admitting defeat to the Kremlin by nationalist politicians who are jostling for votes ahead of parliamentary polls at the end of next month. The 48-year-old chocolate baron came out swinging in his first extended question-and-answer session with reporters since the day after his May presidential election win.
“We must be ready to protect our country if the peace plan does not work,” he said.
“Believe me, we have the means to defend ourselves,” he added, in reference to supplies of radar and other non-lethal military equipment he secured during his visit to Washington on Thursday and talks with NATO allies.
Poroshenko conceded that the advanced technology was especially badly needed because 65 percent of the military hardware — much of it left over from the Soviet era — sent into the war zone had been destroyed.
However, Ukrainian National Defense and Security Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko said that Kiev would not withdraw its forces to allow the creation of a buffer zone until the rebels stopped shooting.
“If [Ukrainian forces] are withdrawn, it will be done simultaneously with the Russian troop withdrawal,” he said.
The interview was aired only hours after thousands of Russians came out in Moscow for their first major protest march against the Kremlin’s involvement in Ukraine since the separatist uprising erupted in April.
Some carried placards reading “forgive us Ukraine,” while others demanded “jail for Putin” in chants that rang out through a crowd organizers put in the tens of thousands.
Putin himself has stayed mum since the signing of Saturday’s peace memorandum in Minsk, and the Moscow march made barely a mention in the state media.
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