Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin issued a new signal about de-escalation of tensions around Ukraine, saying some troops massed on the country’s border were being sent back to base, but U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders cast doubt on such movements and said an imminent Russian incursion was still possible.
Putin said the Kremlin’s chief concerns remained unanswered – guarantees from the West that NATO would expand no further and that Ukraine would never be permitted to join. He called for the implementation of two contested accords to end a separatist rebellion in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and Russia’s parliament added new pressure by urging the Kremlin leader to extend full recognition to two Ukrainian regions run for eight years by armed Russian proxies.
Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis proceeded at full throttle, with German Chancellor Olaf Sholz calling on Putin to roll back the troops deployments and ensure there would be no new conflict.
More than 100,000 Russian troops have been massed on Ukraine’s border – Biden put the number at 150,000. Putin has said he has no intention of ordering an incursion into Ukraine, but insists that the West take seriously his call to revamp security arrangements in Europe. NATO and Western countries reject his demands as being tantamount to installing spheres of influence throughout the continent.
The announcement by Russia’s Defence Ministry on withdrawing some of the troops – with few details – was made a day after a televised exchange between Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Moscow’s strategy of pressing the West for change was working and that the Kremlin was pursuing a diplomatic settlement.
Putin repeated the assertion that some troops were being withdrawn after three hours of Kremlin talks with Sholz. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, he said Russia in no way wanted a war in Europe.
“Do we want this or not? Of course, not,” he said. “That is exactly why we put forward proposals for a process of negotiations.”
Putin said Russia was “also ready to continue on the negotiating track, but all these questions, as has been said before, must be viewed comprehensively”.
Forthright chancellor
Sholz, accused of being too soft on Moscow by politicians in the United States and even in Germany, was forthright in denouncing the troop buildup. But it was right to proceed with negotiations.
“I expressed that the troop buildup is seen as a threat,” Scholz told reporters alongside the Kremlin leader. “Of course, we are very concerned, there are more than 100,000 Russian troops on the border with Ukraine, and we find this incomprehensible.”
Sholz also explicitly mentioned the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which is to take Russian gas to Germany once it secures regulatory permission. But he avoided any notion that the project – lucrative for both Berlin and Moscow – would be promptly halted in the event of an incursion. Biden has said any invasion would trigger an immediate stop to Nord Stream 2 – without saying how such action would be taken.
In a White House address later in the day, Biden said there was no clear evidence troop numbers were being reduced. He pledged to “give the diplomacy every chance”.
A Russian invasion, he said, “remains very much a possibility”. Russian troops leaving “would be good, but we have not yet verified that. We have not yet verified the Russian military units are returning to their home bases. Indeed, our analysts indicate that they remain very much in a threatening position.”
Neither the United States nor Ukraine posed a threat to Russia, he said.
“If Russia proceeds, we will rally the world to oppose its aggression.”
The United States sent an additional 3,000 troops to Poland at the end of last week, bringing the total number of new forces dispatched to close to 6,000 in recent weeks. About 100 troops have also arrived in Romania.
In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said: “So far we have not seen any de-escalation on the ground, not any signs of reduced Russian military presence on the borders of Ukraine,”
Russia has moved forces around before while leaving heavy weapons in place, he noted.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Russia had been sending “mixed signals” on its intentions. He said the West wanted to see a “programme of de-escalation” from Russia and had a “very tough” set of sanctions “ready to go” in the event of an invasion.
Russian parliament appeals to Putin on Ukrainian “separatists”
Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, stoked passions by urging Putin to formally recognise two “people’s republics” set up in eastern Ukraine by Russian proxies funded by the Kremlin. The stage-managed parliamentary move probably illustrated Putin’s impatience at a lack of progress in solving eight years of conflict in which 14,000 have died.
Extending recognition would almost certainly deal a big setback to the two “Minsk accords” signed in 2015 and 2016 — when Ukraine was under considerable military pressure — and aimed at resolving the conflict.
France has led efforts to pursue those two accords – viewed with deep suspicion in Ukraine as extending the autonomy envisaged in them would give Russia a measure of control over decision-making in Kyiv. French President Emmanuel Macron, who visited Moscow and Kyiv last week, called for efforts to implement them through the “Normandy format” – talks involving Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.
In Kyiv, a government agency said a cyber attack had put out of action the Internet sites of the Defence Ministry, the Ukrainian armed forces and two major banks. Ukraine has endured a number of similar attacks in recent years, incidents it views as part of a broader Russian tactic to destabilise the former Soviet state.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week that seeking NATO membership, enshrined in the constitution, remained a national goal, but acknowledged that it could be regarded as a “dream” for the moment – a sentiment echoed in Moscow by Sholz, who said he and Putin could well fail to see it in their lifetimes.
Zelensky has vowed in recent days that Ukrainians are prepared to fight to preserve their homeland. He has also called on Western countries to tone down warnings of an imminent Russian invasion, saying they were sowing a measure of panic and hurting the economy.
In response to a prediction by several security sources that such an incursion would occur on 16th February, the president proclaimed the same day a “Day of Unity” with special patriotic ceremonies to underscore Ukrainians’ resolve.