KIEV - Ukraine took a historic step towards NATO on Tuesday in a parliamentary vote that stoked Russia's anger ahead of talks on ending the ex-Soviet state's separatist war. <\/p>\n
Lawmakers in the government-controlled chamber overwhelmingly adopted a bill dropping Ukraine's non-aligned status - a classification given to states such as Switzerland that refuse to join military alliances and thus play no part in wars. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
\"Ukraine's fight for its independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty has turned into a decisive factor in our relations with the world,\" Poroshenko told foreign ambassadors in Kiev on Monday night. <\/p>\n
\"European and Euro-Atlantic integrations - that is Ukraine's XX course,\" Poroshenko tweeted moments after the 303-8 vote. <\/p>\n
Ukraine assumed 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. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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 rustbelt in the past eight months. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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 twos ids. <\/p>\n
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The rest is here: <\/p>\n
Ukraine takes historic step towards NATO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KIEV - Ukraine took a historic step towards 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 given to states such as Switzerland that refuse to join military alliances and thus play no part in wars Continue reading