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By Thomas Grove

MOSCOW Wed Dec 24, 2014 1:31pm EST

1 of 3. An Ukrainian serviceman guards at a checkpoint near the eastern Ukrainian town of Debaltseve in Donetsk region, December 24, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Valentyn Ogirenko

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Wednesday NATO was turning Ukraine into a "frontline of confrontation" and threatened to sever remaining ties with the Atlantic military alliance if Ukraine's hopes of joining it were realized.

The Kiev parliament's renunciation of Ukraine's neutral status on Tuesday in pursuit of NATO membership has outraged Moscow and deepened the worst confrontation between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.

"NATO countries pushed Kiev to this counterproductive decision, trying to turn Ukraine into a front line of confrontation with Russia," Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov told the Russian news agency Interfax.

"If this decision in the future takes on a military character (accession to NATO), then we will respond appropriately. Then there will be a complete severing of ties with NATO, which will be practically impossible to repair," Antonov said.

It is likely to take years for Ukraine to meet the technical criteria for accession to NATO and, even then, there is no certainty that the alliance is ready to take on such a political hot potato.

Yet Russia has made clear it would see the NATO membership of such a strategic former Soviet republic with a long common border as a direct military threat.

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Russia says NATO turning Ukraine into 'frontline of ...