Ukraine to join NATO?

The Financial Times reports that Ukraine may be on the fast-track toward NATO membership:

The US would like Ukraine to join the membership action plan by September and certainly before a Nato summit in Riga in November. That would give the country the prospect of becoming a member before President George W. Bush leaves office in early 2009.

If Ukraine joined NATO, Ukraine's borders would be protected by NATO troops, meaning any dispute between Russia and Ukraine (in The Crimea, perhaps, a Russian-leaning region which was gifted to The Ukrainian Socialist Republic by Kruschev) would be a dispute between the Kremlin and The White House.

My Russian tutor is one of many people in this region of the country who are strongly opposed to NATO membership, in large part because of fears that travel back and forth between Ukraine and Russia would be made more difficult. Born in Kursk, just over the border, my tutor is like the majority of people in Kharkov -- an ethnic Russian.