Russia "threatened" by Ukraine potentially joining NATO: Ex Russian President Medvedev

Moscow [Russia], July 3 : Russia's Security Council's Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev has claimed that the country is "threatened" by Ukraine, which can potentially join North Atlantic Treaty Organization, CNN reported Monday.

"We (Russia) have always asked for only one thing to take into account our concerns and not to invite the former parts of our country into NATO," Medvedev, a former Russian president and prime minister, wrote in an article for the state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper on Sunday.

"Especially those with whom we have territorial disputes. Therefore, our goal is simple to eliminate the threat of Ukraine's membership in NATO," he added.

The Security Council's Deputy Chairman further stated that one of the reasons for Russia to attack Ukraine was to fend off NATO from expanding close to its borders, according to CNN.

And Medvedev said Moscow is ready to deliberately make the current conflict a permanent one, because "this is a matter of Russia's existence."

The matter of Ukrainian membership in NATO is one of several issues leaders will tackle when they meet in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on July 11 and 12.

The issue will prove one of the biggest flash points for the group, which has managed to remain remarkably united amid Russia's unprovoked invasion.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Russia launched an overnight drone attack on Kyiv, after a 12-day break, a senior Ukrainian military official said according to Al Jazeera reported.

"Another enemy attack on Kyiv," Al Jazeera quoted Serhiy Popko, a colonel general who heads Kyiv's military administration, saying in a post on the Telegram channel early on Sunday.

"At this moment, there is no information about possible casualties or damage," he said.

The attack came a day after Ukrainian officials reported more civilian casualties from Russian shelling in the country's east and south.

At least three civilians were killed and 17 were wounded on Friday and overnight on Saturday, in the eastern front-line Donetsk region according to Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that fierce clashes continued in three areas in Donetsk where it said Russia has massed troops and attempted to advance. It named the outskirts of three cities - Bakhmut, Lyman and Marinka - as front-line hot spots, AL Jazeera reported.

In addition to this, five people including a child were wounded in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, on Friday as well as in overnight attacks, according to Governor Oleksandr Prokudin.

He said that Russian forces launched 82 artillery, drone, mortar shell and rocket attacks on the province, which is cut in two by a stretch of the 1,500km (930 miles) front line and still reeling from flooding unleashed by the collapse earlier this month of a major Dnipro River dam.