United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday showed Washington's strong support for Ukraine's intensions to join the NATO military alliance despite firm Russian opposition to the move.

On the meeting with foreign minister of Ukraine on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Ms. Rice proclaimed the United States agreed with commitment made at a summit in Bucharest last April for Kyiv to join NATO's Membership Action Plan (MAP) - a first step to the membership in the military alliance.

"We, definitely, are, have been and will keep our support of Ukraine's Transatlantic ambitions. And indeed, the United States position on MAP was very pure," added Rice, to Ukraine's Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ogryzko.

"I have to say the Bucharest declaration is also very pure," she mentioned.

At the April summit, NATO heads stopped short of putting Ukraine and Georgia immediately on the way to membership of the alliance, but approved the two ex-Soviet countries would one day become members.

Russia hardly opposes Ukraine's offered membership of NATO, as well as that of Georgia.

Russia and Georgia fought a brief war last month after Tbilisi has sent in troops to try to seize back the region of South Ossetia, causing massive retaliation by Moscow and a plummet in United States-Russia relationship to their lowest level since the end of the Cold War.

While the U.S. has strongly supported both Georgia and Ukraine's membership intensions, other NATO members including Germany, France and smaller NATO countries have opposed it for fear of further conflicting with Russia.

The idea of membership has not been fully received in Ukraine either. Polls show a part of the Ukrainians refuse NATO membership and the head of the country's biggest parliamentary party has noted the issue should be decided by the Ukrainian people.