MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered thousands of troops to withdraw from the border with Ukraine ahead of diplomatic talks on bringing peace to the Western-backed, former Soviet republic.
The announcement by the Kremlin appeared to be a positive signal prior to Putin’s meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and European leaders in Milan on Friday.
Accused by Ukraine and the West of stoking a bloody insurgency in eastern Ukraine, Russia is facing its most serious international isolation since the end of the Cold War. Several rounds of Western sanctions have shaken the economy, intensified capital flight and weakened the ruble.
“The head of state has tasked the defence minister with beginning to bring troops back to their permanent bases,” the Kremlin said. The order meant that 17,600 servicemen, who the Kremlin said had been participating in drills in the southern Rostov region on the border with Ukraine, would withdraw. Defence minister Sergei Shoigu received the order after reporting that “summertime training on military ranges of the Southern military district is over,” the Kremlin said.
The late Saturday meeting between Putin and Shoigu took place after the president chaired a meeting of his national security council at his Black Sea residence in Sochi, said the Kremlin, without providing further details.
Kiev reported that attacks by insurgents in the east of the country had subsided. The rebels and the Ukrainian military in the eastern Donetsk region said for their part that they had agreed to a “no-shooting period,” and the army announced “progress” in negotiations and preparations to create a buffer zone, as required under a ceasefire agreement.
Russia denies meddling in Ukraine and says it has never deployed troops in the bloody conflict. But Moscow-based political analyst Alexei Makarkin suggested Putin’s order to pull back troops from near the border was aimed at persuading the West to ease punitive measures.
“I think this is part of the compromises that Russia and Ukraine have reached,” he said on Echo of Moscow radio.
Putin will meet Ukraine’s Poroshenko for talks on the sidelines of an Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Milan on Friday.
The talks — which will also address the two countries’ long-running gas dispute -- will also include the prime ministers of Italy and Britain as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “I don’t expect that these will be easy negotiations,” Poroshenko said on Saturday. Putin and Poroshenko last met in August in Belarus, after which Kiev announced a truce with the pro-Moscow separatists which has been repeatedly broken.
In addition, US Secretary of State John Kerry will hold talks with Russia’s Sergei Lavrov in Paris tomorrow, with Ukraine expected to be high on the agenda.
The six-month conflict in Ukraine has killed more than 3,300 people and sparked deep mistrust between Russia and its neighbours to the west.AFP
