Ukraine plans $3 billion boost to defense spending

[unhappycamper]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_UKRAINE?SITE=VANOV&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Ukraine plans $3 billion boost to defense spending
Aug 24, 6:10 AM EDT

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- Ukraine's president announced plans Sunday to boost his country's defense spending by an estimated 50 percent as government forces seek to overpower pro-Russian separatists in the east.

President Petro Poroshenko made his pledge 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 Kiev's Independence Square, where months of protests earlier this year ended in the ouster of the country's previous pro-Russian president. During the parade, tanks and other armored vehicles rumbled past in a show of strength.

"It is clear that in the foreseeable future there will always, unfortunately, be the threat of war," Poroshenko said. "And we not only have to learn to live with that. We must always be prepared to defend our independence."

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I wonder how much the $tate Department will toss into the pot.