Ukraine will choose whether to join NATO in a referendum once the former Soviet republic moves from empty declarations and completes real policy changes needed for membership, President Petro Poroshenko said.

We have worked out an intense plan for the next six years, so that the country meets the criteria to join the EU and to join NATO, Poroshenko said in Kiev yesterday. And only then the Ukrainian people will decide on joining or not joining, in a referendum.

Ukraines government said Sept. 26 that it seeks to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the short term. Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticized the U.S. and European Union countries for encroaching into former communist Europe, saying they have violated agreements signed at the end of the Cold War and pose a threat to his countrys national security.

More than 4,300 people have been killed during the conflict and much of the local infrastructure has been laid to waste in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine along the Russian border. The EU and the U.S. accuse Russia of not abiding by a Sept. 5 truce signed in Minsk, Belarus. Ukraine says Russian troops and vehicles continue to cross the frontier. Russia denies its fomenting the war.

Two people died and others were injured when a shell hit a bus in Donetsk today, RIA Novosti reported, citing the citys mayor. Pro-Russian insurgents attacked 17 locations in Donetsk and Luhansk regions overnight using mortars, multiple rocket launch systems and shells, the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council said in a statement on Facebook.

Rebels fired 19 times at residential areas in the Luhansk region alone in the past 24 hours, the council said. Government forces fired 30 artillery rounds to protect their positions and civilians, it said, adding that troops near the key port city of Mariupol have all means to repel the aggressor.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged Russia to pull back its forces from eastern Ukraine and respect the wobbly truce. He also said that the military alliance would stick by a 2008 decision to let Ukraine join if it eventually meets the criteria and decides to do so, even if membership isnt being discussed now.

The open door is still open, Stoltenberg said.

We are calling on Russia to pull back its forces from eastern Ukraine and to respect the Minsk agreements, and to stop fueling the conflict by supporting the separatists and use all its influence on the separatists to make sure they are respecting the cease-fire, Stoltenberg told lawmakers from NATO countries in The Hague yesterday. We are calling on Russia to stop violating international law and to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine.

Germanys foreign minister expressed concerns that Russia is seeking to split up Ukraine by supporting separatists in the east as Putin defended his stance in the conflict.

Originally posted here:

Ukrainians to Decide on Future NATO Membership in Eventual Vote