Ukraine to hold referendum on NATO membership

(Vatican Radio) Ukraine's president says his country plans to hold hold a referendum on joining the NATO military alliance, amid mounting concerns over Russia's alleged expansion plans in the region. Petro Poroshenko spoke while Russia signed a controversial deal with a breakaway region of another former Soviet republic, Georgia. 

Listen to Stefan Bos' report: 

Poroshenko said his former Soviet Republic would ask Ukrainians whether their nation should join NATO once it has met "certain criteria" for membership.

However analysts said that despite the announcement, membership is not likely soon as Ukraine is destabilized by fighting between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in the east.

And Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Moscow would never accept Ukraine joining NATO, as the alliance would "break" a historic promise by gradually approaching Russia's borders.

"We would like to hear and [receive] a 100 percent guarantee that no one would think about Ukraine joining NATO," he added. "We would like to hear that NATO would discontinue to approach Russian borders. That NATO will discontinue attempts to break the balance of power."

Yet, Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite, who met her Ukrainian counterpart in Kiev, made clear she understood Ukraine's eagerness to join NATO. She earlier accused Russia of involvement in terrorism.

“A country that tells its troops to remove recognition patches, which deploys army and heavy equipment without signs of recognition, such country carries all the signs of a terrorist state,” she said.

Russian President Putin's spokesperson Peskov denied the charges saying only some retired soldiers are in Ukraine, but without Moscow's support.

"I would like to remind you numerous words [and] numerous statements by President Putin, official statements, saying very officially that there are no Russian troops, no Russian military, official military, dislocated or being send or...being present on the soil of Ukraine," he stressed. 

Yet Ukraine and the West have expressed concern that Russia is tightening its grip on the region after it already annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

On Monday Russia signed a controversial deal with Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia.

He promised $200 million in additional aid next year, envisaging closer military and economic ties and, eventually, more control over land along the Black Sea.