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Ukraine kick-started the process to strengthen its ties with NATO and will strive to join the alliance in the short term, its government said, a day after its president declared the worst of its eastern separatist war was over.

The country of more than 40 million people is scheduled to hold talks today in Berlin to resolve a dispute over natural gas supply before the onset of winter. Russia stopped selling the fuel to Ukraine in June without pre-payment after raising the price 81 percent, which has prompted officials in Kiev urge companies and households to cut consumption. Russian gas exporter OAO Gazprom (GAZP) says Ukraine owes it $5.3 billion.

Ukraines push to end its neutral status and join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will probably exacerbate the worst standoff between Russia and its former U.S. and European Cold War foes since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Sporadic fighting between pro-Russian rebels and government troops in the eastern Donetsk region of the former Soviet Republic is threatening a shaky cease-fire reached three weeks ago.

Standoff in Ukraine

The cabinet has submitted a draft law to parliament that envisages the cancellation of our non-alliance status and ensuring a European integration course to create grounds for Ukraines integration into the euro-Atlantic security space, the administration in Kiev said in an e-mailed statement today. Ukraines government underlines that Ukraines aim is to receive special partner status with NATO now and membership in the short-term.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticized the U.S. and European Union countries for encroaching into former communist eastern Europe, saying they have violated agreements signed at the end of the Cold-War and pose a threat to his countrys national security.

Putin wants to turn Luhansk and Donetsk into quasi-statelets with the right to veto national initiatives such as Ukraine joining NATO, according to five current and former Russian officials and advisers. Hes suggested Ukraine switch to a federal system that would give regions a veto over major state decisions, such as EU or NATO membership.

The U.S. and EU have imposed sanctions on Russian people and companies they blame for fueling a conflict that has killed more than 3,500 people in eastern Ukraine, according to United Nations estimates. Russia denies stoking the conflict, which erupted after President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea in March.

Worst Over?

In August, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen reiterated a decision taken in 2008 that Ukraine may join the alliance if it chooses to and meets necessary criteria. No official process for Ukrainian membership has begun.

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Ukraine Pushes for NATO Membership as Gas Talks Commence