Kyiv — Russia said Wednesday that more of its forces were pulling back from Ukraine‘s borders after military exercises. A day earlier, the U.S. and its NATO allies met Moscow’s initial claims of a pullback with intense skepticism, but they made it clear that both sides intend to continue negotiating for a solution to the standoff between East and West, in which Ukraine is caught perilously in the middle.
President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the U.S. had yet to see any proof of Russia’s claims that it was pulling some of the estimated 150,000 forces massed around Ukraine’s northern, eastern and southern borders back to their bases. A Russian invasion, he said, “remains distinctly possible.”
On Wednesday, before meeting U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said not only was there no evidence of a withdrawal, but “on the contrary, it appears that Russia continues their military build-up.”
Amid the uncertainty over President Vladimir Putin’s actions and intentions, people in Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv were keeping calm. But they clearly felt vulnerable as Russia continued huge war games on the Black Sea and in neighboring Belarus, and as cyberattacks continued to derail government and financial websites in the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky declared Wednesday “Unity Day” — a bid to show strength in the face of Russian attempts to divide his nation, where a war has simmered against Russian-backed separatists in the east for eight years.
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