KYIV. June 16 (Interfax) - The current situation in Donbas shows that Russia has not abandoned its plans to attack Ukraine, Stepan Poltorak, the Ukrainian defense minister, said on Friday.
"The situation in the front shows that the aggressor, the Russian Federation, has not dropped the idea to occupy our country," Poltorak said at a graduation ceremony at the Ukrainian National Chernyakhovsky Defense University in Kyiv on Friday.
In these circumstances, Ukraine should continue to reform its defense sector and reinforce its armed forces, he said.
"The level of professionalism with which each of us acts in their position after receiving knowledge will determine how quickly we can carry out the armed forces reform. We have set up new command bodies, a combined operation staff, and the special operations forces, improved our high-mobility forces, improved the training system, and changed the logistics support system," he said.
The Ukrainian armed forces received 2,500 items of new and modernized hardware in 2016 alone, and 15,000 items of hardware underwent repairs, he said.