Russia on Thursday announced more troop pullbacks from the Ukrainian border as Washington insisted that Moscow is still building up forces for a potential invasion of its pro-Western neighbour.<\/p>\n
After previously announced withdrawals earlier this week, the United States, NATO and Ukraine all said they had seen no evidence of a pullback.<\/p>\n
The Russian defence ministry said units of the southern military district were returning to bases from Moscow-annexed Crimea and that tank units of the western military district had departed on a military train for their bases 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) away.<\/p>\n
It did not provide details on the specific amount of troops or equipment involved.<\/p>\n
Western officials say Russia has amassed well over 100,000 troops and significant military hardware near Ukraine’s borders in preparation for a potential invasion, which Washington says could take place “at any time”.<\/p>\n
Russia has said “large-scale” military exercises are taking place in various areas, including near Ukraine, but has not provided any specific numbers and has repeatedly denied any plans for an attack.<\/p>\n
US says pullback claims ‘false’ <\/p>\n
The troop build-up and Western threats to respond to an invasion with painful economic sanctions have brought tensions between Moscow and the West to their highest since the end of the Cold War. <\/p>\n
Intense diplomatic efforts — including meetings and repeated phone calls between President Vladimir Putin and Western leaders — have done little to ease the crisis.<\/p>\n
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who was due in Kyiv on Thursday warned that the crisis risked becoming “a running sore”.<\/p>\n
Moscow “could drag this out much longer in a brazen ploy to spend weeks more \u2013 if not months \u2013 subverting Ukraine and challenging Western unity,” she wrote in the Daily Telegraph.<\/p>\n
A senior White House official on Wednesday said Russian announcements of withdrawal were “false”, accusing Moscow of increasing its presence on the border by “as many as 7,000 troops”. <\/p>\n
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and other Western officials also said they saw no sign of a drawdown, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv had observed only “small rotations” that did not signify any real change.<\/p>\n
Presiding over a national “Day of Unity” he declared on Wednesday, Zelensky watched Ukrainian soldiers train with new Western-supplied anti-tank weapons and visited the frontline city of Mariupol.<\/p>\n
“We are not afraid of anyone, of any enemies,” Zelensky said. “We will defend ourselves.”<\/p>\n
Russian officials have accused the West of provoking “hysteria” with claims of a planned invasion. <\/p>\n
Even Ukrainian officials have warned that some Western moves — including the US relocating its embassy from Kyiv to the western city of Lviv – are unjustified and helping to spread panic.<\/p>\n
‘Ukraine just a field of battle’ <\/p>\n
At the border of Ukraine and Belarus — where Russian and Belarusian forces are carrying out major joint exercises — residents feared being caught in the middle of a clash of great powers.<\/p>\n
“The Ukrainians could start something, thanks to the Americans and the British, who brought all their weapons here,” 87-year-old Lidiya Silina told AFP in her green wooden shack close to the border.<\/p>\n
“For them, Ukraine is just a field of battle with Russia.”<\/p>\n
The joint drills in Belarus — which the US says involves some 30,000 Russian troops — are set to end on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Russia insists its forces will go back to bases after the exercises so a significant withdrawal early next week could set the stage for the crisis to ease.<\/p>\n
Russia has blamed the West for provoking the tensions, saying Washington and its European allies have for too long ignored Moscow’s security concerns on its doorstep.<\/p>\n
Putin has demanded that Ukraine be forever banned from fulfilling its hopes of joining NATO and for the alliance to roll back its deployments near Russia’s borders.<\/p>\n
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that Moscow would send a reply to US proposals about European security later in the day.<\/p>\n
European Union leaders, already gathered in Brussels for a summit with their African counterparts, were to hold impromptu crisis talks Thursday on Russia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n
A UN Security Council meeting is also set Thursday to discuss the crisis.<\/p>\n
US Vice President Kamala Harris will also meet with Zelensky on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference this weekend, a senior White House official said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russia on Thursday announced more troop pullbacks from the Ukrainian border as Washington insisted that Moscow is still building up forces for a potential invasion of its pro-Western neighbour. After previously announced withdrawals earlier this week, the United States, NATO and Ukraine all said they had seen no evidence of a pullback. The Russian defence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244979,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-244978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n