Ukraine to join NATO......Russia on the edge

With a Russian-backed separatist insurgency still gripping eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Parliament voted on Tuesday to take steps toward joining NATO. It was a pointed rebuke to Russia that immediately drew an angry response.

The Parliament, firmly controlled by a pro-Western majority, voted overwhelmingly 303 to 8, to repeal a 2010 law that codified a policy of “nonalignment,” and to instead pursue closer military and strategic ties with the West.

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

The 2010 law defined nonalignment as “nonparticipation of Ukraine in the military-political alliances.”
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The revised law, which was a priority of President Petro O. Poroshenko, requires Ukraine to “deepen cooperation with NATO in order to achieve the criteria required for membership in this organization.” For now, it still seems unlikely that Ukraine will join NATO, in part because of Russia’s strong opposition.

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 V. Putin’s personal spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told the BBC: “We would like to hear a 100 percent guarantee that no one would think about Ukraine’s joining NATO.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/24/world/europe/ukraine-parliament-nato-vote.html?_r=0