National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine to consider bill to reintegrate Donbas
The National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) will soon consider a bill on the deoccupation and reintegration of the Donbas, First Deputy Chairperson of Parliament Iryna Herashchenko announced on Facebook.
According to her, work on the bill “On the characteristics of state policy regarding the restoration of Ukraine’s state sovereignty over the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine” is virtually complete, and it will be introduced during the NSDC session.
“Today we have been working for several hours, we are polishing certain contentious aspects of the bill. In the near future an NSDC session will be held, where this bill will be reviewed and a final decision will be made. I also propose that in the near future a discussion on the bill be held on the informal Minsk platform, which was created and works successfully in the Verkhovna Rada,” Herashchenko wrote.
“By order of the president, together with experts and the secretariat of the NSDC, work on this bill will continue. Importantly: Ukraine will remain committed to the political and diplomatic way of resolving the war in the Donbas, inspired by Russia, but we will fight for the deoccupation and return of territories. This is the philosophy of the bill,” Herashchenko added.
In an interview with the media, NSDC Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov said that Ukraine must end the anti-terrorist operation and transition to a new format of national defense against Russia’s hybrid war. According to him, the mentioned bill “to re-establish the state sovereignty of Ukraine over the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions” will be presented to the president, after which it will promptly be introduced to the Rada.
Commenting on Turchynov’s statement, President Petro Poroshenko announced work on a bill to reintegrate the Donbas which will entail a number of measures for returning the separatist-held territories, and determine their legal status.