Ukraine's Parliament Drops Non-aligned Status
by VOA News December 23, 2014
Ukraine took a further step toward seeking NATO membership Tuesday, when the country's parliament passed a law abolishing Kyiv's neutral, non-aligned status.
Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly scrap the non-aligned status, which was adopted in 2010 under Russian pressure and had prevented Kyiv from entering into any military alliances.
The amendment passed easily, receiving 303 votes, 77 more than the minimum required to pass into law.
"Aggression against Ukraine on the part of the Russian Federation, the illegal annexation of [Crimea], the waging of a so-called 'hybrid war' against our state, [Russia's] military intervention in eastern Ukraine, permanent military, political, economic and informational pressure on the part of Russia, have forced Ukraine to seek better safeguards of its independence, sovereignty, security and territorial integrity," some of the bill's language reads.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said he will seek membership in NATO, the Western military alliance, as Kyiv fights Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said the move underscored the country's determination to pivot towards Europe and the West. 'This will lead to integration in the European and the Euro-Atlantic space," he said.
Russian reaction
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Ukraine's renunciation of its neutral military and political status a "counterproductive" step that would only raise tensions around the crisis in the east.
"It will only escalate the confrontation and creates the illusion that it is possible to resolve Ukraine's deep internal crisis by passing such laws," TASS news agency quoted him as saying.
In comments published in Russia's Interfax news agency, Russian diplomat Andrei Kelin slammed the move as 'unfriendly.' He vowed Moscow will 'negatively respond,' but did not elaborate.
Kelin is Moscow's representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is arranging peace efforts between Kyiv and the rebels.
'Forced to react'
On Monday, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on his Facebook page that if Ukraine's non-aligned status were canceled, Ukraine would turn into a 'potential military adversary of Russia,' and that Moscow would be 'forced to react.'
Meanwhile, Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, took issue with Medvedev's statement.
In a tweet, Pifer rhetorically asked whether Russia's response would be to annex Crimea and invade Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.
Russia's relations with Ukraine took a sharp downturn after Kyiv's Moscow-backed president was overthrown in February and replaced with a Western-friendly leadership.
Moscow responded by annexing the Crimean peninsula. Ukraine and Western leaders also accuse Russia of arming and supporting the Russian-speaking rebels in the east. Russia denies this, saying any Russian troops in the region are there as volunteers.
Some material for this report came from Reuters.
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