Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced $3bn will be spent on re-equipping his country’s army.
Speaking on the Ukrainian independence day, the president said that his country was fighting "a war against external aggression, for Ukraine, for its freedom, for its people, for independence".
"It is clear that in the foreseeable future, unfortunately, a constant military threat will hang over Ukraine. And we need to learn not only to live with this, but also to be always prepared to defend the independence of our country," he said, according to Reuters.
The army conducted a march-past in the capital Kiev, but pro-Russian rebels also held a parade in their stronghold of Donetsk, where they paraded around a hundred Ukrainian POWs.