Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Amid skepticism in the West, Russia on Thursday announced a new pull out of military forces from the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula, continuing a troop withdrawal that began on Tuesday, as diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis escalated.
“Units of the southern military district that ended tactical exercises at training grounds on the Crimean Peninsula are returning by rail to their permanent bases,” the Russian defense ministry said in a statement, the media reported.
Russia’s state-run TV showed columns of military hardware crossing a recently constructed bridge connecting the Peninsula to the Russian mainland.
This announcement was the latest reported drawdown of a Russian military force estimated by the West to be over 100,000 troops, which the US had earlier said could prepare to invade Ukraine to dissuade it from joining NATO and the European Union.
However, NATO, the United States, and European leaders have rejected the Russian move, saying there is no meaningful drawdown of troops. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow’s military personnel were actually rotating.
Russia had annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and supported pro-Moscow separatists in fighting that broke out eight years ago. It has claimed over 14,000 lives, according to the media.
Reacting to the Ukraine developments, Europe’s top bourses mostly rose on Thursday’s start of trading.