Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Wednesday he would submit to parliament a bill granting parts of the separatist east more autonomy but keeping it part of the ex-Soviet state.
"There is and can be no talk of federalisation or some estrangement (by the rebel-held regions)," he told a cabinet meeting "The law on temporary self-rule in individual districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions provides for a status that keeps these regions in Ukraine."