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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday in a speech to the Duma that "every country has the right to make sovereign decisions…. At the same time, the acceptance into NATO of Ukraine and Georgia will mean a colossal geopolitical shift, and we assess such steps from the point of view of our interests." This is pretty blunt language for a diplomat. Russia does not want to see a colossal geopolitical shift, and that's what it thinks is happening.
The Russian Foreign Ministry also condemned Ukraine's decision to bar several senior Russian lawmakers from Ukraine. One of these, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, is a fairly notorious Russian nationalist. The Russian Foreign Ministry doesn't much care for Zhirinovsky, but it also obviously doesn't care for Ukraine barring Russian legislators -- even if, as the Ukrainians put it, he was known for "insulting statements about Ukraine." At the same time, a Ukrainian diplomat was also refused entry to Russia.
Both Ukraine and Georgia clearly want to join NATO. There are multinational joint military exercises scheduled for July in Ukraine, to include U.S. forces. These have met with protests by pro-Russian Ukrainians, whom the Ukrainian government claims are being stirred up by the Russians. At the same time, Georgia announced that it will build a NATO-compliant military based in Gori, to join the one already built in Senaki.
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