By Efrem Lukatsky And Laura Mills
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s president announced plans Sunday to boost his country’s defence spending by an estimated 50 per cent as government forces seek to overpower pro-Russian separatists in the east.
President Petro Poroshenko pledged to spend an extra 40 billion hryvnia ($3 billion) by 2017 during a speech marking Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
More than 20,000 people, many waving the country’s blue and yellow flag or donning traditional embroidered shirts, gathered to hear Poroshenko and watch an ostentatious military display in Kyiv’s Independence Square, where months of protests earlier this year ended …read more
Source: canada.com
