A debate in Ukraine over the past year on whether

A debate in Ukraine over the past year on whether the former Soviet republic should move closer to and even seek to join NATO “led to freezing of Russian-Ukrainian political communications [and] to headaches in the relationship between NATO and Russia,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“What is most dangerous,” the statement continued, is how discussion of Ukraine’s NATO aspirations led to “the deepening of the split of Ukrainian society, the majority of which doesn’t support the idea of Ukraine entering NATO.”
Ukraine’s interim government says it is not seeking Alliance membership.
Russia has justified its annexation of Crimea last month in part on the grounds that it was defending the aspirations of the majority ethnic Russians in the province. The ethnic Russians oppose the Western tilt of the forces in power in Kiev since the ouster of the pro-Russia president, Viktor Yanukovitch.
That reasoning for Russia’s actions has also set NATO on edge as Russia has amassed tens of thousands of forces along its border with Ukraine. Like Crimea, Ukraine’s eastern provinces are largely populated by ethnic Russians.
NATO and Western European leaders continued to express concerns Tuesday that Russia could decide to send its troops into eastern Ukraine to seize the country’s eastern-most provinces.
Mr. Rasmussen rejected Russian claims of a partial drawback from the border, telling reporters, “This is not what we are seeing.” German officials had reported Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin assured German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a telephone conversation that a partial pullback was under way.
What worries NATO officials is that the thousands of troops Russia has deployed to the border appear to be settling in for the long haul.
That could suggest a couple of things, regional analysts say: One is that Russia intends to keep up its campaign of “intimidation,” as President Obama called it last week, to try to dissuade Kiev from continuing on its Westward-leading path.
Another is that Moscow still hasn’t decided if it will order its troops into eastern Ukraine, but wants to keep its options open.