Here's an update from RFE/RL's news desk:
Ukraine's defense chief has called for the military budget to be doubled next year to increase the armed forces' ability to fight pro-Russian separatists in the east.
At the same time, Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak told parliament today (December 12) that some units would be shifted to the west and south because of what he said were threats from Moldova's pro-Russian breakaway Transdniester region and Russian troops on the annexed Crimean peninsula.
Poltorak called for a military budget of 50 billion hryvnia (about $3.2 billion) and said it had totaled 26 billion hryvnia this year.
He said the military planned to spend about $110 million buying new weapons abroad and $365 million on domestic arms procurements.
More than 4,300 people have been killed since April in a conflict between government forces and the rebels, who hold two provincial capitals in the east.
"We are facing the threat from our eastern border. But there is also a threat from Transdniester and from the south, and the quantity of our units there will be increased," he said.
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Ukraine, whose economy is struggling and its currency falling, would have to divert funds from social payments to increase defense spending.
Poltorak said Ukraine would draft 40,000 conscripts and train 10,500 contract soldiers in 2015.
He said the total strength of the armed forces would increase to 250,000, from 232,000 this year.
(UNIAN, Reuters, AFP)
It looks like another Georgian will be joining the government, according to this report from RFE/RL's news desk:
A former deputy interior minister of Georgia, Ekaterina Zguladze, is expected to be appointed to a similar post in Ukraine next week.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov wrote on Facebook on December 12 that he had signed a recommendation addressed to President Petro Poroshenko to grant Ukrainian citizenship to Zguladze so that she can be appointed.
According to Avakov, Poroshenko has welcomed his recommendation and it is expected that Zguladze will become a Ukrainian citizen next week, after which Avakov will ask the Cabinet to appoint her as his first deputy.
Zguladze helped carry out sweeping law enforcement reforms that were praised by the West under former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Saakashvili and his allies have come under vocal criticism from the former opposition politicians who unseated them in a 2012 election and some face criminal investigations or charges.
Ukraine's new government, approved on December 2, includes Health Minister Aleksandr Kvitashvili, who was health minister in Georgia under Saakashvili; American-born Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who previously worked at the U.S. State Department; and Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius, a Lithuanian investment banker.
All of them obtained Ukrainian citizenship before joining the cabinet.