The US and Nato said on Wednesday that they had still seen no sign of a pullout of Russian troops from near Ukraine, even as Moscow said it was continuing a partial military withdrawal and Ukraine sought to project national unity in the face of the threat.
Secretary of state Antony J. Blinken said the US had seen no evidence of a significant Russian military withdrawal from Ukraine’s borders, a day after President Vladimir V. Putin said that Russia had decided to “partially” pull back its forces.
“Unfortunately there’s a difference between what Russia says and what it does,” Blinken said in an interview with ABC News.
“And what we’re seeing is no meaningful pullback. On the contrary, we continue to see forces — especially forces that would be in the vanguard of any renewed aggression against Ukraine — continuing to be at the border, to mass at the border.”
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, echoed the US assessment, saying that Russia remains capable “of a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine without any warning time”.
Stoltenberg said that in the past Russia has moved troops while leaving weaponry in place.
“So what we need to see is a real withdrawal of forces, which is lasting and real, and not that they move troops around,” he said.
“But again, we are monitoring, we really hope that they will withdraw forces, and that will be the best contribution to a political solution. And we believe there’s some reason for cautious optimism because they have stated so clearly, at least stated, that they’re ready for a diplomatic solution.”
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, dismissed Nato’s assessment on troop levels, saying that the alliance had not made “a sober evaluation” of the situation.
Russia’s defence ministry announced more troop withdrawals, saying that a train loaded with Russian tanks, armoured vehicles, and howitzers left Crimea and would return to their bases after concluding military exercises.
A video from the ministry showed a train loaded with armoured vehicles crossing into mainland Russia from Crimea, travelling across a vast bridge built to link Crimea and Russia after it annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
Ruslan Leviev, a researcher who follows Russian troop movements, said that the military equipment that left Crimea could be redeployed at bases near Ukraine’s east.
(New York Times News Service)