True de-escalation, sign or mistake.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday that units from Russia's western and southern military districts, concentrated along the borders with Ukraine for months, will begin to return to their bases after completing their training.
The announcement, which caused a positive reaction in the markets and in the Russian currency, the ruble, which has been under pressure, coincides with the arrival in Moscow of the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to meet with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and It comes a day after the Kremlin signaled that there is still room for diplomatic dialogue.
However, while announcing that some groups of troops are returning to their barracks, Russia maintains military exercises in various sectors and continues to concentrate soldiers in other areas close to Ukraine.
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Last spring, when Russia announced the withdrawal of soldiers that it had grouped on its western borders and that had triggered the alarm of the European Union and NATO, it left several teams and most of the heavy weapons on the ground.
This Tuesday, the spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, spoke of the withdrawal of contingents from two districts (brigades have arrived from all over Russia, even from points as distant as the Far East, but it is these two that have bases in the areas closest to Ukraine), although he has announced that Russian troops will continue the maneuvers "in various operational sectors".
"The Russian Armed Forces continue a series of large-scale exercises involving virtually all military districts, fleets and Airborne Forces,"
Defense noted that naval maneuvers involving "surface ships, submarines and marine aviation in operational sectors of the world's oceans and seas adjacent to Russian territory" are also being developed.
Russia has concentrated some 140,000 soldiers along the borders with Ukraine, on the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014, and on Belarusian soil, where it conducts joint exercises with troops from Minsk, according to estimates by the Ministry of Defense. Ukrainian and US defense.
The Russian Army has also moved rocket batteries west and has deployed Iskander surface-to-surface missile systems.
Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander Valeriy Zaluzhny said on Monday that Russia had mobilized between 85 and 87 battalion tactical groups near Ukraine, with about 20 more constantly on the move.
Faced with warnings from the United States, which has assured that this week is decisive and that the Kremlin could launch a large-scale invasion shortly, Moscow denies that it intends to launch another military aggression against Ukraine, where Europe's last war is taking place. , in Donbas, between the Kiev Army and pro-Russian separatists supported by the Kremlin.
Russia argues that it can move troops within its territory as it wishes and that it is NATO that threatens Russian security and sovereignty and that the warmongering maneuvers of the Atlantic Alliance (which invited Kiev to join in 2008, although that membership does not has advanced) in Ukraine are causing the crisis.
Moscow accuses the West of preparing provocations to start a war, while Washington believes that Russia may be preparing a false flag operation (a military action orchestrated to appear to be the work of the enemy) in order to intervene in Ukraine under the guise of defending the citizens of the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where he has handed over about a million Russian passports, according to estimates by senior Russian officials.
The Kremlin has charged again this Tuesday against NATO and the United States, which it accuses of inflating the crisis, promoting it and of hysteria.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed that Russia had always intended to complete the maneuvers and for the soldiers to return to their bases, and that the reactions to the Russian troop concentration show the weakness of the West, which would probably attribute this withdrawal as an achievement.
"The West, if they haven't already, will say: 'Look, as soon as we put pressure on them and [US President Joe] Biden mobilized, they immediately got scared and complied with our demands,'" Lavrov said at a news conference. in Moscow together with his Polish counterpart, Zbigniew Rau.
"That's selling air - our Western colleagues have been quite successful at that,"
In Ukraine, the government has taken the announcement of the withdrawal of some Russian troops with caution.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba noted that there is reason for skepticism.
“When we see the withdrawal, we will believe in the de-escalation,” he said in a video conference briefing.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that he sees signs of "cautious optimism" over the Kremlin's signs of following the diplomatic path, but that he still sees no signs of de-escalation taking place.
In the face of constant alerts from the United States —where espionage reports have even set a date for the alleged invasion, on February 16, this Wednesday—, the president of Ukraine, Volodímir Zelenski, makes an effort to ask for calm from a citizenry that seems calm.
The Ukrainian government fears that in this war of suffocation, Moscow will achieve its goal of destabilizing the country.
"Today they are scaring Ukraine with a big war and once again they are setting the date for a military invasion, but our state is stronger than ever," Zelensky said in a televised address Monday night.
The Ukrainian president has declared February 16 as the Day of Unity of Ukraine and has decreed that the flag be flown on all official buildings and that the national anthem be played at 10 o'clock in the morning.
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