Ukraine's new Western-backed president has signed a landmark EU pact whose rejection by his pro-Moscow predecessor plunged the ex-Soviet country into turmoil and sent East-West relations to their lowest level since the Cold War.
Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko on Friday hailed the deal, which pulls Kiev out of Kremlin's orbit, as a turning point for the strategic country sandwiched between Europe and Russia.
But the agreement bursts Russian President Vladimir Putin's dream of enlisting Kiev in a Kremlin-led alliance that could rival the European Union and NATO and Moscow warned it would have "serious consequences."
The Association Agreement is also deeply unpopular in Ukraine's heavily Russified eastern rustbelt, where pro-Russian insurgents are battling Kiev government troops.
The European Union also sealed similar partnership agreements on Friday with Georgia and Moldova - two former Soviet nations with similarly complicated relations with Russia.
Poroshenko said the deal offered Ukraine "an absolutely new perspective for my country," hailing a "historic day, the most important day since independence."
The deals were signed in Brussels just hours after pro-Russian rebels released four monitors from the Organisation and Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) they had abducted on May 26.
Another four European observers and their Ukrainian translator are still being held captive by the gunmen and Putin has personally urged the militias to secure their release.
The Kremlin chief denies exerting control over the fighters and is yet to address in public reports from Kiev and Washington of rocket launchers and even tanks crossing the Russian border into the conflict zone.
But Putin is also facing the threat of imminent economic sanctions should he fail to show that he is backing Poroshenko's bid to end nearly three months of fighting that have claimed more than 435 lives.
The Russian leader said on Thursday that he wanted to see a temporary truce that's due to expire extended, to give nascent peace talks between Kiev and separatist leaders a chance to work.
Poroshenko responded by announcing that he was "ready to make peace with anybody". But he is yet to commit himself to the ceasefire's extension.
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