Russia’s defence minister on Thursday ordered the withdrawal of most of the troops that had recently amassed at the border with Ukraine following nearly four weeks of a war scare.
Kyiv accused Moscow of trying to provoke fighting in the long-simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine but Russia insisted that the unusually high number of troops that had moved across the country in late March to its south-western border were merely there for military exercises.
The European Union put the number of Russian troops at the border with Ukraine and the Russia-occupied Crimean peninsula at 100,000.
Capping weeks of tensions that prompted Ukraine to speak about a tangible risk of a new war, Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said on Thursday that most of the troops would be withdrawn immediately as the goals of what he described as a readiness exercise “have been fully achieved.”
“The troops have shown their capacity to provide a solid defence for our country,” Mr Shoigu said in televised remarks after inspecting training grounds in Crimea where a heightened military presence raised a particular concern in the West.
Starting Friday, all the troops involved in the south and the west will withdraw to their bases, he said.
However, Russia will leave some armoured vehicles in one area in the south, about 100 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, until the end of summer when new military drills are set to begin in Russia’s west.
The sudden end to Russia’s worrying sabre-rattling came the day after President Vladimir Putin issued a stern warning for the West, saying that Russia will never allow it to encroach on its “core interests” and referred to unnamed “red lines” which, he said, are up to Moscow to draw.
Later on Thursday, President Putin was expected to take part in a virtual summit on climate change, chaired by US President Joe Biden, who recently urged the Kremlin to de-escalate.
President Biden called Mr Putin last week and offered a one-to-one meeting in what the Kremlin saw as the US backing down in the war of words with Russia.
The Kremlin was clearly encouraged by Mr Biden’s phone call and felt no further need to demonstrate Russia's military might, Kremlin watchers said.
“Russia was looking for ways to put pressure on the West, and it found it by threatening to stir up the hostilities in Ukraine - and it worked,” independent military analyst Alexander Golts said on the Dozhd TV channel on Thursday.
The war scare also offered the Kremlin a welcome distraction from the plight of opposition leader Alexei Navalny whose deteriorating health dominated Russian social media before reports about Russian troops movements emerged in early April.
The Kremlin, however, now seems to be more confident of the news agenda. Mr Navalny, who is on hunger strike, has now reportedly been examined by civilian doctors - his key demand - and Russians took to the streets for fairly muted protests in his support on Wednesday night.
Russia’s swift and bloodless annexation of Crimea in 2014 sent President Putin’s approval ratings soaring but the Crimean euphoria has since worn off, and there seems to be little appetite for foreign policy forays right now.
A recent opinion poll by Russia’s respected Levada pollster showed that a whopping 62 per cent of Russians say they are scared of a new “world war,” a record-high since Levada first polled Russians about their fears in 1994.
Satellite images released earlier this week showed a massive military build-up in Crimea including dozens of fighter jets which some Ukrainian politicians called a potential invasion force.
Russia has recently deployed what has been described as an unprecedented number of navy vessels to the strategic sea between Crimea and Ukraine, raising worries about a potential incursion from Crimea.
Tensions between Russia and Ukraine flared up at the end of March when hostilities in the long-dormant conflict in eastern Ukraine resumed all of the sudden.
The redeployment should include 15 ships from the Caspian Sea flotilla currently holding exercises around the Kerch Strait, which Russia has threatened to close to Ukrainian non-commercial ships.
Ukraine's navy deployed its small fleet on the Sea of Azov to monitor the Russian exercises.
A Ukrainian military source told the Telegraph before Shoigu's announcement that the Russian exercises, which appeared to simulate amphibious landings, were expected to run at least until Sunday.
