Western officials and those in Ukraine approached such developments with caution. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the announcement gave “ground for cautious optimism,” but added “we have not seen any sign of de-escalation on ground.”
Russia’s defense ministry announced on Tuesday it would begin pulling back some troops from areas near the border of Ukraine, a move that suggested Moscow may be seeking to defuse tensions over a crisis in Ukraine that has unsettled Europe and drawn condemnation from the Biden administration.
The Russian Defense Ministry’s announcement follows other encouraging signs from the Kremlin. Russian President Vladimir Putin met on Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and in a highly choreographed scenetasked his top diplomat to continue negotiations with the West, which had threatened deep economic sanctions and other consequences if Russia were to invade Ukraine.
Such apprehension may be justified. Konrad Muzak, director of the Poland-based Rochan consultancy, which analyzes open-source materials, said that reports on social media indicated Russia was moving additional equipment to staging areas in Crimea and Belarus. Russian officials insisted that Tuesday’s withdrawal represented a defeat of Western governments’ insistence that an invasion was imminent.
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