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Russia calls Ukraine #39;s bid to join NATO "counterproductive"
Russia has been reacting to the news that Ukraine has dropped its international neutrality, saying it gives false hope that the political crisis in the country will be resolved. Moscow called...

By: euronews (in English)

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Russia calls Ukraine's bid to join NATO "counterproductive" - Video

Ukraines parliament backed a proposal to cancel the countrys non-aligned status, a decision Russia denounced as a dangerous step toward seeking membership of NATO.

The legislation put forward by President Petro Poroshenko was supported yesterday by 303 of 357 lawmakers in the chamber, hours after the announcement of fresh talks to try to end the conflict with pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. The bill will help Ukraine as it seeks to achieve all criteria of membership for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told parliament.

The vote in Ukraine is counter-productive and will increase confrontation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow yesterday. It will have extremely negative consequences and amounts to an application to join NATO, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev wrote on Facebook.

The decision follows an announcement that the Ukraine Contact Group will meet Dec. 24 and Dec. 26 in Minsk, Belarus, after a phone call on Monday between Poroshenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande. A two-week truce has tempered the bloodshed in a conflict that has killed more than 4,700 people since April in fighting between government forces and separatists in Ukraines Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Ending Ukraines non-aligned status is the choice of the Ukrainian people, Klimkin wrote on Twitter after the vote. This is the choice for freedom and security.

Poroshenko said in November that Ukraine would hold a referendum on seeking NATO membership at the end of this decade after it had completed real policy changes. Germany and France have signaled that they are opposed to Ukraine joining the 28-member alliance because of concerns that this will inflame tensions with Russia.

NATO should be open to new members, Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz told reporters in Warsaw yesterday. Its up to Ukraine to decide whether they want to join.

The contact group, which has representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, last met in September to try to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The four leaders emphasized the need to fulfill agreements made at those talks, including withdrawal of troops and heavy armament, as well as immediate liberation of all prisoners, Poroshenko said in a statement on his website.

The main task at the moment is to stop the violence, Alexei Panin, deputy director of the Center for Political Information, a Moscow-based research group, said by phone. The confrontation may evolve into a frozen conflict that could encourage the European Union to lift sanctions against Russia by mid-2015, though U.S. measures imposed over the crisis will remain, he said.

Defense spending is Ukraines top priority, Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko told parliament yesterday as she presented the governments draft 2015 budget for what she called the robbed and fighting country. Ukraine is in its most difficult situation since independence, she said.

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Ukraine Parliament Votes to End Non-Aligned Status in NATO Move

MOSCOW In a sign of Ukraines hardening attitude toward Russia, Ukrainian lawmakers on Tuesday voted to remove a legal barrier to joining the NATO defense alliance.

The move provoked an angry response from Russia, even though NATO shows few signs of accepting Ukraine as a member anytime soon. But this years bloody conflict in Ukraines east has altered the countrys feelings about the Western alliance. A plurality of Ukrainians now favor joining NATO, a stark change from recent years when just a small fraction did.

Ukraines decision comes as Russia struggles with a weakened ruble and growing concerns about economic instability.

The vote in Ukraines parliament had no immediate practical effect on the countrys relationship with NATO. But it ended Ukraines nonaligned status, which was adopted as a way of reassuring Russia that its neighbor would not join NATO. Russian President Vladimir Putin cited his fear of Ukraines joining NATO as a reason Russia annexed Crimea in March.

The proposal to eliminate nonaligned status passed easily, with 303 of the Ukrainian parliaments 450 lawmakers in support. After the vote, legislators stood up and applauded.

Finally, we corrected a mistake. 303 votes and Ukraines nonaligned status is out, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. There is no alternative to Euro-Atlantic integration. Glory to Ukraine!

Russian leaders reacted immediately with harsh denunciations, warning Ukraine and NATO that no good could come of the decision.

This is counterproductive and only escalates confrontations and creates an illusion that by adopting such laws it might be possible to settle a profound domestic crisis in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, the Interfax news agency reported.

He called for dialogue inside Ukraine, where Russian-supported rebels in the east have waged a war that has claimed more than 4,700 lives.

A day earlier, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned on his Facebook page that application for membership in NATO would turn Ukraine into a potential military adversary for Russia.

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Ukraine parliament votes to take step toward NATO, angering Russia

Last winter's revolution in Kiev upset Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans to enlist Ukraine in a new, Kremlin-led bloc that could rival both Nato and the European Union.

And Moscow had set Kiev's exclusion from all military blocs as a condition for any deal on ending the pro-Russian uprising that has killed 4,700 in the eastern Ukrainian rust belt in the past eight months.

Putin's view of Nato as modern Russia's biggest threat has only been reinforced by this year's dramatic spike in East-West tensions over Ukraine.

"In essence, an application for Nato membership will turn Ukraine into a potential military opponent for Russia," Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned in a Facebook post on Monday.

He said that Ukraine's rejection of neutrality and a new Russian sanctions law that US President Barack Obama signed on Friday "will both have very negative consequences".

"And our country will have to respond to them," Medvedev added.

Perhaps the most immediate threat will be to delicate peace talks this week in the Belarussian capital Minsk that Poroshenko announced on Monday.

Poroshenko said the deal for Kiev and rebel negotiators to meet in the presence of Russian and European envoys on Wednesday and Friday was struck during a joint call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande the West's top mediators on Ukraine.

The last two rounds of Minsk consultations in September produced a truce and the outlines of a broader peace agreement that gave the two separatist regions partial self-rule for three years within a united Ukraine.

A pro-Russian separatist stands guard near Donetsk's Sergey Prokofiev International Airport (Reuters)

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Ukraine takes historic step toward Nato membership

The Ukraine parliament voted overwhelmingly to take steps towards joining NATO. Photo: AFP

Moscow: The Ukrainian parliament has voted to take steps towards joining NATO, a pointed rebuke to Russia that immediately drew an angry response.

With a Russian-backed separatist insurgency still gripping eastern Ukraine, the parliament voted overwhelmingly 303-8, to repeal a 2010 law that codified a policy of "non-alignment," and to instead pursue closer military and strategic ties with the West.

Former president Viktor Yanukovych, who was toppled in February after months of huge street protests in Kiev, pushed through the 2010 law shortly after he took office. Mr Yanukovych fled to Russia after he lost power.

A protester argues with police in front of Ukrainian Parliament. Photo: AFP

The 2010 law defined non-alignment as "non-participation of Ukraine in the military-political alliances".

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The revised law, which was a priority of President Petro Poroshenko, requires Ukraine to "deepen co-operation with NATO in order to achieve the criteria required for membership in this organisation."

For now, it still seems unlikely that Ukraine will join NATO, in part because of Russia's strong opposition.Moscow had set Kiev's exclusion from all military blocs as a condition for any deal on ending the pro-Russian uprising that has killed 4700 in the eastern Ukrainian rust belt in the past eight months.

Russia has denied repeatedly that it set off the separatist violence in eastern Ukraine, but in recent months it has also made clear that preventing Ukraine from seeking NATO membership is one of its top goals. In November, President Vladimir Putin's personal spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told the BBC: "We would like to hear a 100 per cent guarantee that no one would think about Ukraine's joining NATO."

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Ukraine takes historic step towards NATO

Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine's president, was unapologetic about the move, saying that Ukraine had "no alternative to Euro-Atlantic integration".

Nato is unlikely to entertain making Ukraine a member any time soon, but the lifting of Kiev's restriction on joining security blocs clears the way for an accession at a later date.

MPs made clear the law was adopted in response to the Kremlin's annexation of Crimea and its intervention in the conflict in the east of the country.

Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine's foreign minister, told the parliament that "in the conditions of the current aggression against Ukraine, this law opens for us new mechanisms".

Ukraine's government veered towards a pro-western course after Mr Poroshenko was elected in May, following the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych, the Moscow-leaning former president who fled to Russia after a popular uprising against his rule.

Government forces have been fighting pro-Russian separatists in the east of Ukraine since April. A shaky ceasefire has largely held in recent weeks and peace talks are expected to tale place in Minsk, Belarus, on Wednesday and Friday.

The Kremlin has long seen Nato expansion in eastern Europe as a deliberate attempt to encircle Russia. Four countries bordering it have joined the bloc since the Soviet collapse Poland in 1999 and Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 2004.

Speaking at his annual press conference in Moscow last week, Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, said that enlargement of the alliance had built a new, "virtual" Berlin Wall around his country.

Arseny Yatsenuk, Ukraine's prime minister, visited Nato headquarters in Brussels earlier this month. Jens Stoltenberg, the bloc's secretary general, told him that Ukraine and Nato were "able to develop our partnership".

A spokesman for the alliance said on Tuesday: "Our door is open and Ukraine will become a member of Nato if it so requests and fulfils the standards and adheres to the necessary principles."

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Russia condemns Ukrainian law that paves way to Nato

Kiev (AFP) - Ukraine took a historic step toward NATO on Tuesday in a parliamentary vote that stoked Russia's anger ahead of talks on ending the ex-Soviet state's separatist war.

Lawmakers in the government-controlled chamber overwhelmingly adopted a bill dropping Ukraine's non-aligned status -- a classification assumed by states that refuse to join military alliances and thus play no part in wars.

President Petro Poroshenko had vowed to put Ukraine under Western military protection after winning an election called in the wake of the February ouster in Kiev of a Moscow-backed president.

"European and Euro-Atlantic integrations -- that is Ukraine's single course," Poroshenko tweeted moments after the 303-8 vote.

Ukraine assumed de facto neutrality under strong Russian pressure in 2010. It had sought NATO membership in the early post-Soviet era but -- its once-mighty army in ruins and riven by corruption -- was never viewed as a serious candidate.

Last winter's revolution in Kiev upset Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans to enlist Ukraine in a new bloc he was forging in order to counterbalance NATO and the European Union.

And Moscow had set Kiev's exclusion from all military unions as a condition for any deal on ending the pro-Russian uprising that has killed 4,700 in the eastern Ukrainian rustbelt in the past eight months.

Putin's view of NATO as modern Russia's biggest threat has only been reinforced by this year's dramatic spike in East-West tensions over Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov demanded that Kiev "put an end to confrontation" and stop adopting "absolutely counterproductive" measures that only stoked tensions between the two sides.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said even more bluntly that "in essence, an application for NATO membership will turn Ukraine into a potential military opponent for Russia."

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Ukraine takes historic step toward NATO

Ukraines Tuesday vote to drop its nonaligned status -- a prerequisite for joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- is threatening to further aggravate tensions with Russia. But its not likely well see Ukraine join NATO anytime soon, analysts say.

It is difficult to see much sentiment within NATO now to put Ukraine on a membership, Steven Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said via email. But he acknowledged Ukraines small step toward a NATO bid was understandable given Russias aggression over the past year.

Ukraine previously made a bid to join NATO in 2008 under then-president Viktor Yushchenko. Yushchenkos plan received support from the U.S. initially, but the bid went nowhere after France and Germany opposed it amid concerns the move would disrupt the balance of power between Russia and European countries. Those concerns are even more palpable now following Russias annexation of Crimea in March and military support for rebels in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian membership in the military alliance could trigger a wider conflict with Moscow, given NATOs principle of collective self-defense.

But ironically, Russian President Vladimir Putins moves in Ukraine -- stemming from his efforts to try to incorporate the country into Moscows sphere of influence in the region and away from the West -- seems to have pushed Ukrainians toward embracing the idea of NATO membership even more. A Gallup poll found prior to the crisis, in 2013, 20 percent of respondents regarded NATO as a force of protection for Ukraine. In 2014, that figure rose to 36 percent. Separately, a November survey by the Ukrainian polling firm Rating Sociological Group found a slight majority of Ukrainians -- 51 percent --expressed support for joining NATO, up from 40 percent in April.

Tuesday's vote "is a direct result of the Kremlin's 10 months of increasingly overt aggression against the country," said John Herbst, director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council and also former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. "A large majority of Ukrainians now understand tha the policies of Mr. Putin are very dangerous for Ukraine. This is a sign they need to find some way to withstand the Kremlin's aggression."

Russia has vociferously opposed Ukrainian membership in NATO, and Tuesday's overwhelming 302-8 vote to drop Ukraines neutral status provoked outrage in Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the move would escalate the confrontation between Kiev and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, the Tass news agency reported.

But Yury Barmin, an independent Russian analyst based in Abu Dhabi, said he didnt think Russia would ramp up aggression at the border. So far its involvement with Ukraine has been very painful for Russia economically, and both the EU and U.S. are ready to impose more sanctions, he said. The [ruble] crash last week showed how vulnerable the Russian economy is, so I believe Vladimir Putin will choose not to provoke any more sanctions at this point.

Pifer said Ukraine could consider putting off a bid for NATO membership for a certain amount of time as part of a settlement deal with Russia. That could be a key element, and [Kiev] would not be giving up much, in view of attitudes within the alliance, he said.

But, he added, Moscow unfortunately has shown little sign of interest in reaching a settlement, apparently preferring to create a frozen [or not-so-frozen] conflict as a means to pressure [Kiev]."

Herbst said while he couldn't predict what Putin's response to the vote might be, the president's goal of destablizing Ukraine to the point where Kiev would prove unable to establish a pro-EU foreign policy is looking trickier to achieve. "Putin realizes that his international position today is much worse than it was six months ago," he said. "And he wants to avoid worsening that."

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Ukraine Inches Toward NATO, But Membership Not Likely Anytime Soon, Analysts Say

How information war can kill: the Chernobyl case (NATO Review)
The information war which has broken out over Russia #39;s actions in Ukraine has largely been seen as two sides projecting differing opinions. But the way infor...

By: NATO

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How information war can kill: the Chernobyl case (NATO Review) - Video

NATO and Moldova tackle a silent killer
Moldova still faces the after-effects of intensive use of dangerous pesticides in agriculture under the former Soviet Union. A NATO Trust Fund is helping the...

By: NATO

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NATO and Moldova tackle a silent killer - Video