Parliament Ukraine agrees to 'war law'

kiev - On Thursday, the Ukrainian parliament passed a controversial law that officially declares rebellious Eastern Ukrainian territories and Crimea to Russian territory. People who cooperate with the occupiers are threatened with prosecution. The law affects fundamental rights and resembles the establishment of a kind of war law, while giving special powers to the petitioner, President Petro Poroshenko.

Poroshenko called it Thursday an important signal to the Donbass and the Crimea. After the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich was expelled from Kiev early in 2014, the unrest among Ukrainians grew with good ties with Russia. In the eastern mining region of Donbass, an uprising broke out where rebels proclaimed independence.

In March 2014, the peninsula of Crimea, where ethnic Russians form the majority, was incorporated without a struggle through Russia.