NATO Secretary Says He Sees No Russian Troops Retreating

NATO Secretary Says He Sees No Russian Troops Retreating

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato’s Secretary General declared this Tuesday that even though Moscow claims to slowly pull back its forces from the border with Ukraine, NATO has no clear signs of this happening.

Rasmussen declared that there are no signs of any troops retreating from the Ukrainian border at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers held in Brusseles, Belgium this Tuesday. He also added that the Russian military presence at Ukraine’s border does not create the right conditions for de-escalating the situation.

U.S. officials reported last week that Russia has gathered around 40,000 troops near Ukraine’s eastern border. The same U.S. officials expressed their concerns that this is a plan to invade the eastern part of the country which has a large Russian minority.

According to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a partial retreat of the amassed troops this Monday. Russian state media confirmed the retreat of an infantry battalion from the border with Ukraine to its base located deeper within Russia.

However, any hope of an immediate de-escalation of the situation seems to be far away as both NATO’s general secretary as well as UK’s foreign secretary William Hague declared that they have not seen any change in the military presence near Ukraine’s borders.

Posted by James Fried on Wednesday April 02 2014, 2:55 AM EST. Ref: Cnn. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0