Note: The thing about this is this is what he has announced. However, is this what he is actually doing or is this a feint or a pretend before he sends his troops into Ukraine. This kind of thing is an established battle tactic of thousands of years of saying one thing while doing another. So, he might just be misdirecting everyone the moment before he sends tanks and soldiers into Ukraine. We will have to wait and see.
President Vladimir V. Putin said Russian troops had pulled back from ... border region, “there has been no evidence that such a withdrawal has ...
Photo
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at a meeting with Didier Burkhalter, the president of Switzerland, on Wednesday in Moscow.Credit
Pool photo by Sergei Karpukhin
MOSCOW
— In an apparent attempt to halt the escalating violence in
southeastern Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin said on Wednesday that
Russia was pulling troops back from the border, and he urged Ukrainian
separatists to call off a referendum on sovereignty they had hoped to
hold on Sunday.
Speaking
at the Kremlin after talks with the president of Switzerland, who is
acting as the chief mediator for Europe in the crisis, Mr. Putin said
that Russia wanted to give diplomacy a chance.
“We
were told constantly about concerns over our troops near the Ukrainian
border,” Mr. Putin said. “We have pulled them back. Today they are not
at the Ukrainian border but in places of regular exercises, at training
grounds.”
NATO
officials said that they saw no immediate sign that Russian forces had
pulled back, news services reported from NATO’s headquarters in
Brussels. A White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, told reporters
traveling with President Obama aboard Air Force One that while the
United States would welcome a Russian military pullback from the Ukraine
border region, “there has been no evidence that such a withdrawal has
taken place.”
Citing
negotiations between Ukrainian separatists and the interim government
in Kiev, Mr. Putin also said he was appealing “to representatives of
southeast Ukraine and supporters of federalization to hold off the
referendum scheduled for May 11, in order to give this dialogue the
conditions it needs to have a chance.”
The
reaction in Kiev and among the separatists in southeastern Ukraine was a
combination of suspicion and mistrust. In Ukraine, there was a feeling
that Mr. Putin was again seeking to manipulate the situation, while the
separatists either declined to comment or said they were unsure about
exactly to whom the Russian leader was appealing.
Mr.
Putin said he wanted the authorities in Kiev to immediately halt all
military actions in southeastern Ukraine, referring to them again as
“punitive operations.” He also welcomed the release of militants the
Ukrainians had been holding, particularly Pavel Gubarev, a “people’s
governor” in Donetsk who had been detained by the Ukrainian security
services.
“We
think the most important thing now is to launch direct dialogue,
genuine, full-fledged dialogue between the Kiev authorities and
representatives of southeast Ukraine,” he said, standing next to Didier
Burkhalter, the president of Switzerland and the chairman of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is
coordinating the mediation effort.
“This
dialogue could give people from southeast Ukraine the chance to see
that their lawful rights in Ukraine really will be guaranteed,” he said.
Mr. Putin also left the door open to Russia accepting, under certain
conditions, the May 25 presidential elections, which Moscow had
previously rejected.
“Let
me stress that the presidential election the Kiev authorities plan to
hold is a step in the right direction, but it will not solve anything
unless all of Ukraine’s people first understand how their rights will be
guaranteed once the election has taken place,” Mr. Putin said.
Mr.
Putin was basically demanding that the mediation achieve what Russia
has been seeking since the rebellion in Kiev overthrew Ukraine’s leader
and Moscow’s ally, President Viktor F. Yanukovych, on Feb. 28: that Kiev
grant some level of autonomy to the regions, including electing their
own governors and directing their own foreign policy with their
immediate neighbors.
Such
a change would allow Russia some measure of control over the future
direction of Ukraine and a possible veto over Ukraine’s attempts to join
the European Union, or worse from Russia’s viewpoint, NATO.
“We
all want the crisis to end as soon as possible, and in such a way that
takes into account the interests of all people in Ukraine no matter
where they live,” said Mr. Putin, according to the official Kremlin transcript of his remarks.
Given
Russia’s record in Crimea, where Mr. Putin repeatedly denied that
Russia’s soldiers were involved, only to admit later that they were,
there was some chance that it was all a feint. Previously, for example,
senior defense officials have said Russia was withdrawing what Western
officials said were 40,000 troops from the border to barracks. But the
soldiers remained.
Both
Crimea and southeastern Ukraine have large populations of ethnic
Russians, and Mr. Putin has insisted on Moscow’s right to intervene to
protect them if they are endangered. Western governments have accused
the Kremlin of fomenting the very unrest and violence that Mr. Putin has
vowed to protect ethnic Russians against.
The
pro-Russian militants who have seized public buildings in at least a
dozen cities in eastern Ukraine have said they will hold a referendum on
the future of the region on Sunday, creating a possible flash point
with the interim government in Kiev.
Analysts
suggested that if the people in eastern Ukraine vote in the referendum
Sunday to join Russia, or for independence, or they demand Russian
protection in some orchestrated way, Mr. Putin will be forced to react.
To avoid intervention after repeated statements that he would protect
ethnic Russians everywhere would appear to be going back on his word and
would make him look weak.
“The
decision was taken not to increase Russian involvement in Ukraine, and
not to increase the chances of major violence there,” said Konstantin
von Eggert, an independent political analyst and a commentator for
Kommersant FM radio.
Most
analysts believe that Mr. Putin wanted to avoid war, and a minor
incursion into Ukraine would not have been enough to resolve the crisis
there. Instead, it could easily have developed into a long, bloody,
expensive slog, bruising the reputation he gained from annexing Crimea
with virtually no bloodshed.
“This
one would not have been bloodless,” said Mr. von Eggert. “This would
have been a real war, not by stealth, not by new methods, but a real
old-fashioned war, and this is something that Mr. Putin does not want.”
It
would have also been followed by punitive Western sanctions that would
have damaged Russia’s already weak economy, and cost Moscow potentially
billions of dollars that it would prefer to spend at home.
In
the past couple of weeks, as the death toll suddenly rose on both sides
in Ukraine, there was concern in Moscow and elsewhere that events were
beginning to take on a momentum that outsiders would be unable to
control. Many pointed to Yugoslavia in 1991, where the violence on the
ground eventually swamped the efforts to contain it.
“The
problem is that in all these types of conflicts, once the black swans
have started to fly, you will never control the situation,” said Sergei
A. Karaganov, dean of the School of International Economics and Foreign
Affairs and periodic Kremlin adviser on foreign policy. “Law and order
was beginning to fall apart, and more and more groups were fighting each
other.”
By
pulling back from the threat, Mr. Putin seemed to be trying to reassert
some measure of control. It is possible that the people holding the
referendum could proceed without him, but the question of what happened
next would then hang over the referendum. “It would be difficult to
conduct this referendum without Russian support,” said Mr. von Eggert.
The
question on the referendum is bland enough, namely, “Do you support the
act of the Declaration of the Independence of the Donetsk People’s
Republic?”
But the fallout would be unpredictable.
There
is also the chance that it could fail. Although rebels control some
urban centers, they by no means control all of southeastern Ukraine.
Repeated surveys have shown that only about 20 percent of the population
want to join Russia.
On
Wednesday, the militants controlling at least a dozen towns in
southeastern Ukraine seemed perplexed by the Kremlin’s announcement.
Both Moscow and the militants have repeatedly said that their actions
are not coordinated, despite the shadowy presence of well-trained,
well-armed men Ukraine accuses of being Russian military.
In
Slovyansk, the ground zero of some of the toughest, most militarily
experienced opposition to Kiev, the separatist mayor, Vyachislav
Ponomaryov, first claimed that he had not heard Mr. Putin’s announcement
and then confessed confusion.
“I don’t know exactly who he is appealing to with this request,” Mr. Ponomaryov said.
He said the militants were still ready to hold the referendum, with the ballots prepared and polling stations being set up.
“If a collective decision is made not to hold the referendum, then we won’t,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re ready.”
A
spokesman for the Donetsk People’s Republic in Donetsk declined to
comment and said that his group would make a statement or hold a news
conference Thursday afternoon.
If
Russia really accepted the mediation route, some Ukrainian analysts
thought it was a way for Mr. Putin to save face. But they were not
entirely accepting.
“I
don’t have any basis to say at this point that his strategy is
changing; I see that his rhetoric is changing,” said Viktor Zamyatin, a
political analyst with the Kiev-based Razumkov Center think tank.
The other way to think about this is that originally when he took Crimea he had a 75% popularity rating at home in Russia. But now, people are dying at a rate of at least 30 to 40 a day in Eastern Ukraine. This is likely diminishing his popularity in Russia by the day. I don't think people in Russia believe he is innocent of sending Russian FSB and Mercenaries into Ukraine at this point because the same men and women are showing up at every city that the police stations and government offices are attacked. And these people are so well armed it would take millions of dollars to have weapons like they have and millions of dollars to train people like this to do this. This would be extremely expensive in every way to accomplish what is being accomplished in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
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