Russia says it's pulling back more troops amid Ukraine standoff
CTV
Russia said Wednesday it was returning more troops and weapons to bases, yet another gesture apparently aimed at easing fears it is planning to invade Ukraine, even as the U.S. said the threat of an attack remained.
Russia has massed about 150,000 troops east, north and south of Ukraine, sparking Western concerns it was planning an assault. There have been no indications of a significant withdrawal of those forces, but this week has seen a handful of gestures from Moscow that offered hope that Europe might avoid war following weeks of escalating East-West tensions.
On Wednesday, the Russian Defence Ministry released a video showing a trainload of armored vehicles moving across a bridge away from Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. It said the movement was part of a return of forces to their permanent bases.
A day earlier, the ministry reported the start of a pullback of troops following military exercises near Ukraine. And Russian President Vladimir Putin signalled he wanted a diplomatic path out of the crisis, emphasizing that he did not want war and would rely on negotiations to achieve his key goal of keeping Ukraine from joining NATO.
While the U.S. and its allies continued to express skepsticism about Russia's intentions, the moves nonetheless changed the tenor amid the worst East-West security crisis since the Cold War.
