Russia announced Thursday that it has proceeded to withdraw more troops from the border with Ukraine, while the United States insists that Moscow continues to reinforce its contingents in the face of a possible invasion of the former Soviet republic.
(Read here: Does the conflict between Russia and Ukraine affect Colombia in any way?)
From Tuesday, the Russian authorities have announced the withdrawal of part of their military and equipment deployed on the border between Russia and Ukraine and in Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow.
(Also: What’s Happening Between Russia and Ukraine? Here’s What You Need to Know)
On Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry said more units were being withdrawn from Crimea and released footage of a military train loaded with trucks arriving in
Mainland Russia through the bridge across the Kerch Strait.
Armored vehicles and tanks also began their withdrawal, the ministry said, without specifying where they left from or where they were going. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, this withdrawal process will take “time”.
Already on Tuesday, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had mentioned a “partial withdrawal” but without detailing the scope or the calendar of the same.
The Westerners doubt Russia’s intentions and continue to suspect that it intends to attack Ukraineensuring that they have not found any evidence of de-escalation.
An anonymous source from the White House even accused Moscow of having increased its troops on the Ukrainian border with up to 7,000 soldiers.
NATO “takes very seriously” the threats against Ukraine, with the reinforcement of Russian troops on its borders, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said in Brussels on Thursday.
“We have seen an increase in troops in the last 48 hours,” including the construction of a bridge “from Belarus to Ukraine, or near Ukraine,” said the British at the Alliance headquarters, where the defense ministers of the NATO countries.
This week, the United States closed its embassy in Kiev, despite calls from the Ukrainian authorities not to spread panic.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky said he had not seen any signs that the troops on the border had decreased and that only “small rotations” were observed.
Belarus, meanwhile, stated that “not a single Russian soldier” will remain on its territory as soon as the maneuvers of the Russian and Belarusian armies end on February 20.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, however, assured that his country would be willing to receive “nuclear weapons” if it felt threatened by Western countries.
Russia will send the US its response to security proposals in Europe
Russia will transmit to the US this Thursday its reaction to the US response to security demands raised by Moscowaccording to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
“Today we will send that letter to the US side,” Lavrov said at a joint news conference with his Italian counterpart Luigi Di Maio.
He added that the content of the Russian letter, which will be sent in printed and electronic formats, will be made public “within the next few hours.” “We believe that it is absolutely essential that members of civil society in our countries know what is happening and what positions each side stands for,” she said.
Otherwise, he said, if it is kept secret, as our colleagues in Washington and Brussels prefer,” then public opinion will continue to be “filled with lies” and propaganda as it is now in the news space, Lavrov said.
The head of Russian diplomacy pointed out that the United States is willing to discuss with
Russia security issues that Moscow proposed to address urgently “for years”.
However, he stressed, these issues ignore the main Russian concerns. And for Moscow, he explained, the important thing is “not to take loose issues out of the package” and then say that all security issues have been resolved. “That’s not the case,” said the Russian minister.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, indicated in turn that the Foreign Ministry “literally right now” is delivering the Russian response to its interlocutors.
Lavrov had advanced this week to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that the Russian response is contained in ten pages.
Putin told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday that Russia is ready to talk about other issues that make up the response he received from the US and NATO, such as transparency in military exercises, missile emplacement issues short- and medium-range terrestrial, and confidence-building measures.
Of course, he made it clear that only in combination with the issues that are “primordial” for the Kremlin, such as preventing the entry of Ukraine – and also Georgia – into NATO, and that he wants to address this issue “now”.
Russia maintains in parallel to the negotiations with the West some 150,000 soldiers near the borders with Ukraine, according to US intelligence, which affirms that, far from partially withdrawing troops as Moscow announced on Tuesday, it continues to reinforce its positions with some 7,000 troops.
Lavrov pointed out this Thursday that next Sunday the joint exercises of Russia and Belarus will end“as announced”, but did not want to confirm whether by then the escalation of tension around Ukraine will have ended.
“As for whether the escalation will end on February 20, I don’t know, because it was not us who created it, we are not dedicated to that,” he said.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko added that the Russian response to NATO will not be submitted simultaneously with the US response. “We are not going to send it today, we are still working on it,” he said. Grushkó, in charge of negotiations between Moscow and the Atlantic Alliance.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE
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