KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Ukraine's president on Monday dissolved parliament and called for early elections in October as his country continues to battle a pro-Russian insurgency in its eastern regions.
In a statement on his website, President Petro Poroshenko said snap elections would be held Oct. 26.
Poroshenko said the dissolution, which was prefigured by the breakup of the majority coalition last month, was in line with "the expectations of the vast majority of the citizens of Ukraine" and called it a move toward "cleansing" the parliament.
Many members of parliament "are allies of the militants-separatists," Poroshenko said, referring to the pro-Russian rebels who have battled government troops in the country's east since April.
The Party of Regions, which is backed by much of the country's industrial, Russian-speaking east and was supported by pro-Russian ex-president Viktor Yanukovych, was the largest party in parliament before Yanukovych fled the country in the wake of massive protests in February and still has a substantial presence.
Most of these members "accepted dictatorial laws that took the lives of the Heaven's Hundred," he said, using the common term for those killed during the protests against Yanukovych, many by sniper fire.
Earlier Monday, a Ukrainian official said a column of Russian tanks and armored vehicles entered southeastern Ukraine - a move that brings the conflict to an area that has so far escaped the intense fighting of recent weeks.
Col. Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's National Security Council, told reporters that the column of 10 tanks, two armored vehicles and two trucks crossed the border near the village of Shcherbak and that shells were fired from Russia toward the nearby city of Novoazovsk.
He said they were Russian military vehicles bearing the flags of the separatist Donetsk rebels. The village is in the Donetsk region, but not under the control of the rebels.
The Ukrainian National Guard later said two of the tanks had been destroyed.