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The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on February 15 that it is returning to its bases some of the troops it has deployed along the border with Ukraine. However, the “large-scale” drills continue and the Duma authorizes President Vladimir Putin to officially recognize two separatist zones, in the Donbass region, in the east of the Ukrainian territory.
Is Moscow taking ambiguous steps in the face of the crisis with Kiev?
In the early hours of this Tuesday, February 15, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that some of the soldiers participating in military exercises near the border with Ukraine are returning to their bases.
The Kremlin confirmed the information, but emphasized that it will continue to carry out tests within its territory, as it sees fit.
“We have always said that after the exercises are over (…) the troops will return to their permanent bases. There is nothing new here. This is a regular process,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The main spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, added that “the units of the Southern and Western Military Districts that fulfilled their tasks have already started loading personnel and equipment on railway and automotive means of transport and will leave today for their military headquarters.” .
The news was taken by the Ukrainian government as a significant first step towards a de-escalation of tensions, especially after weeks of diplomatic negotiations and after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged President Vladimir Putin on Monday, February 14, to give more time for negotiations with the West.
“We and our allies have managed to prevent Russia from escalating again. We are already in mid-February and you can see that diplomacy is still working,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
However, from the United Kingdom they received the information with caution. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss argued that only until there is a large-scale exit of Russian troops from the vicinity of its neighboring country would Moscow’s commitment not to attack Ukrainian soil be demonstrated.
Russia has deployed more than 100,000 troops to the border with Ukraine, according to Kiev estimates, although US and UK officials refer to 130,000.
Despite the expansion of its troops and the development of military exercises in which its ally Belarus also participates, the Kremlin insists that it has no intention of invading Ukraine and describes the West’s accusations as “hysteria”.
Last week, Washington warned that Moscow could attack “at any moment”, a warning that generated various reactions in Europe, such as the urgent call for foreigners in Ukraine to leave immediately.
The Duma authorizes Putin to officially recognize two separatist zones
A few hours after the announcement of the withdrawal of some troops, the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament, approved a bill that asks Putin to officially recognize two separatist zones in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.
Is about Donetsk and Lugansk, self-proclaimed independent from Ukraine by Russian-speaking separatists in 2014, just months after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. They currently have the backing and financing of Moscow.
Since then, Moscow and Kiev have been technically at odds, but the military deployment of the last year has been exorbitant, which has raised alerts from the United States and its allies about possible similar actions.
Formal recognition of these two secessionist zones in eastern Ukraine would further accentuate the already high tensions in the region.
Likewise, it would be in contradiction with the Minsk Agreements signed in 2015 to try to resolve the conflict between Kiev and the pro-Russian separatist rebels and that Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodímir Zelenski, promised to respect, despite the tensions.
Even on February 8 and in the middle of his round of negotiations with Putin and Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the two parties agreed to go to the Minsk Agreements to alleviate the current crisis.
Despite these announcements, the diplomatic battery between Moscow and the West continues to try to avoid a possible confrontation with Moscow, potentially the most dangerous since the Cold War, according to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
With Reuters, AP and AFP