Russia said Tuesday that some units participating in military exercises were returning to their bases, adding to glimmers of hope that the Kremlin may not be planning to invade Ukraine imminently.
That muddied efforts to determine the significance of the announcement, which buoyed world financial markets and the long-suffering ruble after weeks of escalation in Europe’s worst East-West standoff in decades. It came a day after Russia’s foreign minister indicated the country was ready to keep talking about the security grievances that led to the Ukraine crisis — a gesture that changed the tenor after weeks of tensions.
Yet Ukraine remains effectively surrounded on three sides by military forces from its much more powerful neighbor, and even if the immediate threat recedes, longer-term risk remains. Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and some 14,000 people have been killed in fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russia separatists in the country’s east.
Speaking in Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said: “So far, we have not seen any de-escalation on the ground, not seen any signs of reduced Russian military presence on the borders of Ukraine.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, a day after sitting down with Ukraine’s leader in Kyiv. In his opening remarks in the Kremlin, Scholz addressed the Ukraine tensions but also noted Germany’s economic ties with Russia — which complicate Western efforts to agree on how to punish Russia in case of an invasion.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss reiterated that the danger of an invasion still exists, telling Sky News that it “could be imminent.” Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt issued a similar warning, and Estonia’s foreign intelligence agency said the Russian armed forces could launch an operation “from the second half of February.”
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