Ukraine’s step toward NATO ‘conterproductive’: Russia

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that Ukraine’s adoption of a bill to drop its non-aligned status was “absolutely counterproductive”.The move “creates an illusion that through this bill, through an aspiration to drop non-aligned status and join NATO- which Ukrainian politicians openly talk about- one can settle a deep crisis of the Ukrainian state,” Lavrov said in televised remarks. “Instead it’s necessary to put an end to confrontation and start an open, all-inclusive dialogue including with those who rejected the anti-constitutional military coup and refused to bow to Kiev,” he said in an apparent reference to Moscow-backed rebels.