“Any movement of Kiev toward NATO or any other anti-Russian military alliance is unacceptable for us. Should this happen, we will immediately break our joint actions with Kiev and will consider the Minsk agreement null and void,” the joint statement published by Donetsk News Agency quotes the Donetsk and Luhansk’s negotiators, Denis Pushilin and Vladislav Deinego, as saying.
The leaders of Russia, France, Germany, and Ukraine held a 16-hour summit in Minsk on Wednesday and early Thursday that resulted in a new political deal aimed at stopping the deadly conflict in eastern Ukraine. The agreement, signed by envoys from DPR and LPR, Kiev, Moscow and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, stipulates ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy artillery, constitutional changes in Ukraine and prisoner swaps.
Earlier this month, Pushilin said that a political settlement of the conflict in east Ukraine is only possible if Kiev maintains its non-aligned status and refuses to join any military alliance.
Last December, Ukraine abandoned its non-aligned status and resumed its course to join NATO, with President Poroshenko describing the country's neutral status as a strategic mistake. Ukraine now has five to six years to finalize its NATO membership bid, according to the president.
Ukraine's push to join NATO following the start of the crisis in the southeast prompted a mixed reaction from the military alliance, with the majority of NATO officials saying it was not ready to join the bloc and urging for deeper reforms.
