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.
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.
