Russia on Wednesday said that it has ended its military drills in Crimea, a peninsula to the south of Ukraine which Russia annexed in 2014; and that an unspecified number of its troops would return to their bases. But the secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, in a swift reaction debunked Russia’s claims pointing out that Russia was on the contrary sending more troops towards Ukraine’s borders.
The announcement came a day after Russia declared it would withdraw some forces from the Ukrainian border, even as the West continued to warn of a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin had amassing more than 100,000 Russian troops on Ukraine’s border since November, though it has denied planning an attack.
In a statement the Russian Defense Ministry said “The units of the Southern Military District, which have completed their participation in tactical exercises on the training grounds of the Crimean Peninsula, are marching to their permanent deployment points by rail.”
Images of about a dozen armoured vehicles crossing the Crimea bridge by night featured on the Russian News Agency.
United States has been skeptical that Moscow would truly de-escalate when it made the initial announcement.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday said that the White House had not yet verified Russia’s claims that it was pulling back, and that its invasion remains distinctly possible.