President Biden said yesterday at the White House that a Russian invasion of Ukraine “remains distinctly possible,” but he vowed to give diplomacy “every chance.”
Biden added that U.S. officials had not verified President Vladimir Putin’s claim hours earlier that Russia would “partially pull back troops” from Ukraine’s border.
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, also said members of the alliance “have not seen any sign of de-escalation.”
In a meeting on Tuesday with Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, Putin said he was seeking a “diplomatic path” to resolving the tense standoff with the West, but he would continue pushing for a rollback of NATO in Eastern Europe and a guarantee that Ukraine would not join the alliance. The Russian Defense Ministry announced that some forces from military districts bordering Ukraine were being sent back to their garrisons.
It was the second straight day that Moscow appeared to swerve away from confrontation over Ukraine, but analysts said it was too early to tell whether the pullback was legitimate.
Quotable: “When we see the withdrawal, we will believe in de-escalation,” Ukraine’s foreign minister said from Kyiv.
New York Times