Ukrainian President Signs 2015 Mobilization Decree

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed and passed to the country's parliament for a approval a decree authorizing a three-stage mobilization in the year 2015.

KIEV, January 14 (Sputnik) — Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed on Wednesday a decree authorizing a three-stage mobilization in the crisis-hit country in 2015.

"I am signing this decree and pass it to the parliament [for approval]," Poroshenko said at a meeting with heads of regional administrations.

According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, the mobilization is expected to begin on January 20, and will be held in three stages. Ukraine plans to bolster its military by calling up some 50,000 people during the new wave of mobilization.

Ukraine carried out three waves of mobilization in 2014 after the start of the armed conflict between Kiev and self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics in the southeast of the country.

The military confrontation began in April, with the warring sides agreeing to a ceasefire in September in Minsk during a meeting on the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. However, both the Kiev forces and the independence supporters in eastern Ukraine have accused each other of repeated truce violations.

In December 2014, Oleksandr Turchynov, the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), said that recruits would serve in the military for 1.5 years, with the minimum age limit raised from 18 to 20.