US and Russian Officials at Odds Over Status of Russian Troops Near Ukraine
On Wednesday, US and NATO officials said they saw no sign of a Russian pullback from areas near Ukraine after the Russian Defense Ministry announced troops were starting to leave the region.
“There’s what Russia says and then there’s what Russia does. And we haven’t seen any pullback of its forces,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told MSNBC. “We continue to see critical units moving toward the border, not away from the border.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also said he hadn’t seen a Russian pullback from the region. In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to Stoltenberg’s comments and said the NATO chief had assessed the situation incorrectly.
