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According to the latest data, about 140,000 Russian troops are concentrated at the borders of Ukraine. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense does not record the real withdrawal of Russian troops, as claimed by the Kremlin. Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told this in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.
“As of this morning February 16, according to the report of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, unfortunately, we have not recorded a real withdrawal of troops, which the Russian Federation claims,” Reznikov said.
He stressed that small units are withdrawn for the sake of appearance, but we cannot witness total or significant troops’ withdrawal.
“And here it coincides with yesterday’s statements from the United States that there is no fact of the withdrawal of troops,” Reznikov noted.
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When asked by a journalist who was close in his statements: Chancellor Scholz, after meeting with Putin, who reported 100,000 troops near the borders of Ukraine, or President Biden, who announced 150,000, Reznikov replied that “in this context, the German Chancellor is mistaken.”
“Mr. Biden is close to the truth. If I’m not mistaken, as of yesterday there were 125,000 ground troops, and if we take the sea and air component, then it amounts to 140,000,” the head of the Defense Ministry summed up.
Earlier today, 100 Russian tanks, howitzers were recorded by OSCE SMM to be kept outside designated storage sites in Donbas.
February 16, Russia’s defence ministry published footage of what it said were tanks, armored personnel carriers, and mobile artillery leaving the Crimean peninsula — which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 — and returning to their bases.
Russia has not taken its “foot off the gas” over a potential invasion and Ukraine and the UK hasn’t “seen evidence” of a withdrawal of forces, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has warned.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg ahead of the meetings of NATO Defence Ministers in Brussels underlined Alliance saw no signs of deescalation on Ukraine-Russia border.
“To be honest we react to the reality we have and we don’t see any withdrawal yet. We just heard about it,” Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky stated in his recent interview with BBC.
