KYIV (UKRAINE) : Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had pulled back some troops from near Ukraine while noting that large-scale military maneuvers were continuing and Western officials warned that combat units were moving into forward positions.
The announced pullback scales down a total force that is still estimated to number more than 120,000, came amid a new round of shuttle diplomacy aimed at defusing the crisis. Moscow has warned of unspecified consequences if the U.S. and its allies reject its security demands.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the situation regarding Ukraine, a day after Mr. Scholz visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. The Kremlin said the talks were expected to last for hours.
Ukrainian officials voiced skepticism that Russia’s position was softening and it was unclear what signals Moscow was intending to send with its statement on troop deployments and other recent moves.
On Monday, during a made-for-television discussion between Mr. Putin and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, Mr. Lavrov said the West had shown itself completely unwilling to accommodate Russian interests, but ended by indicating diplomacy should continue and that “our possibilities are far from exhausted."
Then, on Tuesday, Russia’s parliament voted to ask Mr. Putin to recognize two Russian-backed separatist republics in eastern Ukraine as independent states. Such a step could set the stage for Russia to openly move its armed forces into those areas but could also give Mr. Putin cover to reduce his forces around Ukraine.
Oleksii Danilov, the head of the country’s National Security and Defense Counsel, played down the importance of Russia’s troop-withdrawal announcement, saying the soldiers could be quickly returned to Ukraine’s borders.
“We have to await confirmation from our intelligence community that this is in fact occurring," Mr. Danilov said. “The turning point will be when the Russian Federation realizes that we are a separate state, that we have the full right to be one, and stops trying to liquidate us."
U.S. officials on Monday said the Russian military presence near Ukraine had grown to 105 battalion tactical groups, from 83 groups earlier this month. Russia has also moved around 500 combat aircraft within range of Ukraine and has 40 combat ships in the Black Sea, according to U.S. officials.
U.S. officials have said Russia could launch an attack on Ukraine as soon as Wednesday. Russia has said it has no intention of attacking Ukraine.
Tuesday’s announcement prompted a rally in U.S. stock futures and European indexes following days of losses. Oil prices dropped from the eight-year high they hit Monday, with Brent crude, the international benchmark, down 2.8%. The threat of war between Ukraine and Russia has, in recent days, added a geopolitical element to investors’ already troubled outlook.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry criticized repeated Western warnings of a Russian attack on Ukraine, slamming what it has consistently described as a U.S.-led disinformation effort aimed at vilifying Russia.
“February 15, 2022 will go down in history as the day Western propaganda for war failed," Maria Zakharova, the ministry’s spokeswoman, wrote on Facebook. “Humiliated and destroyed without a single shot being fired."
In Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky late Monday called for calm amid Russian pressure.
“Today they are scaring Ukraine with a great war and, once again, are setting the date for a military invasion, but our state is stronger than ever," he said in a video posted on Facebook.
Recognition by Moscow of the two separatist republics as independent would effectively end diplomatic efforts that began in 2015 when an agreement known as Minsk-2 stopped most hostilities in Ukraine’s Donbas region. The so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics were carved out following an armed insurgency that began in 2014 and haven’t been recognized by the West.
Russia has recently been increasing pressure on Kyiv to abide by the terms of that agreement, which Ukraine had agreed to under military pressure. The agreement called for the decentralization of political power in Ukraine and constitutional changes in coordination with the rebel governments, a plan that Kyiv has since rejected.
The impact of a potential approval by Mr. Putin isn’t immediately evident. If he recognizes the republics, he may be able to declare he is standing up for Russian interests and has made the West listen to Moscow’s security demands with his military buildup. At the same time, recognition of the republics could give him the chance to send weapons and troops onto their territories following scripted appeals for his help, and potentially give him a pretext to attack Ukraine in the name of defending Russia’s allies while continuing to weaken Kyiv using economic and other tools.
Russia has long accused Ukraine of discriminating against Russian speakers in Donbas.
Several Russian deputies said the vote could give Mr. Putin more leverage in his negotiations over securing security guarantees for Russia and could help resolve the crisis surrounding Ukraine in the Kremlin’s favor.
Mr. Danilov, the Ukrainian national security official, said recognition of the Russian-controlled statelets in Donetsk and Luhansk wouldn’t change much on the ground because the areas are already controlled by Moscow, which has distributed Russian passports to their residents. He said Kyiv has no intention of seizing the region by force because that would result in civilian casualties.
