MOSCOW (Reuters) – Some of the Russian troops deployed in regions bordering Ukraine are returning to their bases after completing military exercises, the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.
According to the Interfax agency, several units deployed in the southern and western regions, on the eastern border of Ukraine, have finished their maneuvers, even if the ministry specifies that other large-scale military exercises are continuing in the rest of the country. country.
“We have always said that the troops will return to their bases at the end of the exercises and that is what is happening,” commented Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
The departure of Russian soldiers from the border area could be a first sign of de-escalation as Moscow and Western countries increase diplomatic exchanges to find a way out of the crisis around Ukraine.
This prospect was also well received on the Russian financial markets and the rouble, weakened by the fear of new Western sanctions in the event of armed conflict, gained 1.5% shortly after the announcement of the ministry.
Ukraine has been more circumspect, with its head of diplomacy, Dmitro Kouleba, stressing that Kiev would judge Russia by deeds, not words.
“We constantly hear contradictory statements from the Russian Federation so we have a rule…we only believe what we see. If we see a withdrawal, we will believe in de-escalation,” he said. said, according to comments reported by Interfax Ukraine.
Westerners, led by the United States and the United Kingdom, have multiplied alarmist statements in recent days about the imminence of an offensive by Russia, which has deployed more than 100,000 soldiers along the eastern border of Ukraine. and warships in the Black Sea. The Russian army is also carrying out joint exercises with Belarus, very close to the northern border of Ukraine, which are supposed to end on February 20.
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Moscow assures that the troops participating in the maneuvers in Belarus will then return to Russia and the Kremlin once again denounced on Tuesday the “disinformation campaign” and the “unfounded hysteria” of the West about a possible Russian attack.
Video images provided by the Ministry of Defense and broadcast by the RIA agency on Tuesday show the loading of tanks and other armored vehicles onto train carriages.
According to the ministry, these images illustrate the return of Russian troops to their bases but Reuters could not confirm in which direction they were heading. The ministry added that other units would return to their camps by road.
The Southern Command of the Russian army has signaled the departure of units that had been deployed in Crimea, a Ukrainian region annexed by Russia in 2014.
The Kremlin said on Tuesday it only deployed troops near the Ukrainian border in response to what it said was a concentration of Ukrainian soldiers along the frontline with the pro-Russian separatist regions of Donbass.
Above all, Moscow is demanding guarantees for its own security, mainly the promise of Ukraine’s non-membership of NATO, which it has not obtained so far, as well as the implementation of the agreements of Minsk which provide in particular for a large autonomy of the Donbass.
After French President Emmanuel Macron last week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the other guarantor of the Minsk agreements negotiated in the “Normandy format” (Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany), is expected in Moscow on Tuesday for an interview with Vladimir Putin, after being received in Kiev on Monday by Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky.
“We expect long exchanges, they have a lot of topics to discuss,” the Kremlin spokesman said on Tuesday.
(Report Anton Kolodyazhnyy, written by Olzhas Auyezov, French version Tangi Salaün, edited by Blandine Hénault)