President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday ordered a temporary closure of Ukraine’s porous border with Russia and voiced plans to apply for EU membership in 2020 as part of his ex-Soviet country’s Westward shift.
Related StoriesA senior Ukrainian security source told AFP that the border security measures was designed to halt the alleged smuggling of weapons into the separatist east and would enter into force “soon”.
The two steps underscore the extent of Kiev’s alienation from its historic master and deal a further blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dream of folding Ukraine into a Kremlin-led alliance that could rival NATO and the European Union.
Separating from Russian and arming against further Russian aggression is by far the more important of these two.
Russians, who have the conspiratorial mentality of supermarket tabloids, think everybody is trying to invade them. Nobody is trying to invade. People from Georgia to Moldova to Ukraine to Estonia just want to put up a gigantic wall and separate themselves so they can have some sort of civilization without Russian brutality and corruption.
