KIEV, June 8 - Parliament voted on Thursday to make membership of NATO a strategic priority for Ukraine despite a warning from Moscow that it interprets the move as a threat.

A solid majority of 276 lawmakers voted to support the bill that makes deeper cooperation with NATO a key element of Ukraine’s foreign policy. The goal is to eventually join the military alliance.

The vote comes as fighting between government forces and pro-Russian rebels in eastern parts of the country has escalated amid intelligence reports indicating the separatists may be preparing for a major offensive.

"The Russian aggression against Ukraine, the annexation of parts of the Ukrainian territory, has set an urgent goal of ensuring the country’s real national security,” according to the bill.

The fighting in Donbas killed more than 10,000 people since April 2014, also displacing at least 1.5 million people within the country.

In reaction to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Moscow-backed occupation by separatists of Luhansk and Donetsk, Ukrainians have tilted towards supporting the joining of the alliance.

At least 54% of Ukrainians supported joining NATO in February, a sharp increase from 16% in February 2013, according to President Petro Poroshenko.

Poroshenko earlier this year said he will hold a referendum to get a go ahead from the people for starting the process of joining NATO.

“I am guided by the views of my people, and I will hold a referendum on the issue of NATO membership,” Poroshenko said earlier this year.

Russia has been persistently opposing Ukraine’s closer cooperation with NATO and sees the alliance’s expansion to the east as a military threat.

"In Moscow we traditionally distrust and have concerns related to the process of NATO expansion towards our borders,” Dmitri Peskov, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Thursday. “Naturally, the Russian side will take all measures needed to rebalance the situation and ensure our own security.” (tl/ez)