Ukraine Parliament Votes to drop ' Non-aligned Status' Tuesday Dec 23,2014

Ukraine’s parliament has dropped the nation’s nonaligned status, possibly paving the way for a bid to join NATO in defiance of the Kremlin’s wishes.

The parliament in Kiev passed the bill to drop the ' Non-aligned Status' on Tuesday Dec 23,2014 in a 303—9 vote, with supporters saying it was justified by Russian aggression toward Ukraine, including the annexation of its Crimean Peninsula in March and Russian support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where some 4,700 people have been killed since the spring.

But opponents said it will only increase tensions, and Moscow echoed that view.

The move doesn’t mean that Ukraine will apply to join NATO. But Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told the parliament the law opens up new mechanisms “in the conditions of the current aggression against Ukraine.”

Ukraine’s prospects for NATO membership in the near term appear dim. Although Ukraine had pursued NATO membership several years ago, it declared itself a non-bloc country after Russia-friendly Viktor Yanukovych became president in 2010.

Five NATO countries Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland now share relatively short borders on Russia’s western outskirts, totalling about 1,300 kilometres. Adding Ukraine’s 1,500-kilometre border with Russia to that would move the alliance’s eastward flank substantially, and put it roughly on the same longitude as Moscow.