KIEV, October 25 (RIA Novosti) - The ceasefire agreement in southeastern Ukraine benefited the country's defense capabilities, but there is no military solution for the crisis, the Saturday appeal of the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stated.
"The decision on the ceasefire primarily benefited defense capabilities... And today we are much stronger than we were six weeks ago," the statement said.
According to Poroshenko, only a political settlement can bring back Ukraine's southeastern regions, "where there is no military solution to the problem."
"Therefore, no carping, - no matter how sharp and painful it may be - will not stop me from finding a peaceful way out of this situation," the appeal said.
The crisis in Ukraine escalated in mid-April when Kiev launched a military operation against independence supporters in the country’s southeastern regions.
On September 5, during a meeting of representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Minsk, a ceasefire agreement was signed between Kiev and Ukraine’s self-proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Additional ceasefire provisions were agreed upon during the second meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine held in Minsk on September 19.
Since then, both the Kiev forces and independence fighters repeatedly accused each other of violating the truce.
