A large-scale reshuffle is needed in Zakarpattia region because representatives of the authorities and the criminal community have collaborated there for a long time, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said.

"Criminals, smugglers and law enforcement bodies have grown together in Zakarpattia since the early 1990s and nobody in the years of independence has succeeded in tearing them apart," he said presenting the new head of the Zakarpattia region administration Hennadiy Moskal in Uzhgorod on Wednesday.

"Everyone knows that" but ignores the fact, he said.

"This won't last any longer… We should start immediately and start with a very serious reshuffle," Poroshenko said adding that the situation will not change for the better "without it the same as without legislative recording of the extraordinary rights of law enforcers."