Russia says its large-scale "training" exercises along the Ukrainian border are over and its military forces will begin withdrawing from the region.
After all, this was all just an innocent multi-month training exercise!
Russia's defence ministry has announced it will withdraw some of its troops from the border with Ukraine, as the Kremlin laughed off US accusations that Vladimir Putin was poised to invade this week.
Putin is toying with us, isn't he?
The size of the withdrawal remains unclear and may involve only a fraction of Russia's forces at the border, which western officials estimate at more than 60% of the country's ground forces.
Russian state media says this was all just about routine training with their pals in Belarus.
Russian troops have completed their training drills in Belarus, close to neighboring Ukraine, and will begin returning to their places of regular deployment, the Ministry of Defense in Moscow has announced amid fears in the West that the exercises could have been a precursor to an invasion.
See! Russia is innocent here, guys!!
But look! There's video evidence too!
Back to the Guardian article:
The defence ministry released video apparently shot in Crimea of Russian tanks and other heavy weaponry being loaded on to railway cars.
Well, that proves it then. Governments have never used media to hide their true intentions!
At least Ukraine has its radar up.
Ukrainian officials said they would not take Moscow at its word about a drawdown. "Many statements are constantly being made from [Russia], so we have a rule: we'll believe it when we see it," said Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's foreign minister. "If we see the withdrawal then we will believe in de-escalation."
Nato's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said recent comments from Putin on continuing talks offered grounds for "cautious optimism" but there was no sign yet of a withdrawal of troops and equipment from Ukraine's border.
He said: "So far we have not seen any de-escalation on the ground from the Russian side. Over the last weeks and days, we have seen the opposite."
So what's the true game here?
What's Putin thinking?
Only God Almighty and Putin's ursine steeds know that.
There might be a hint in the way the world responded to the news of the troop withdrawal:
There's also the propaganda quote from the tweet above:
Feb. 15, 2022 will go into history as the day western war propaganda failed. They have been disgraced and destroyed without a single shot being fired.
Yeah, Putin is definitely toying with us. Sure, he wants Ukraine. But that's not really the point. The point is the power demonstrated by influencing global politics and economics. The point is proving he's smarter, more cunning, and more dangerous than the addled West led by Geriatric Joe.
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