Ukraine doesn’t see one-time withdrawal of Russian troops as de-escalation - Foreign Minister

The real signal of de-escalation would be a consistent withdrawal of all Russian forces deployed along the Ukrainian border, not a one-time pullback.

This was stated by Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, who spoke at an online briefing on Monday, February 7, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"As for de-escalation, we need to see a systematic withdrawal of Russian troops from the Ukrainian border and the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Meanwhile, a one-time pullback doesn’t mean de-escalation," Kuleba said.

The head of Ukrainian diplomacy stressed that a clear signal of de-escalation would be the consistent withdrawal of all forces deployed along the border of Ukraine over the past year.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, on January 29, Russia announced that the troops and aircraft of the Western Military District had completed a "scheduled combat readiness check" and were allegedly returning to their bases.

On January 31, Kuleba said that distrust in Russia's actions and words persisted, so Russia's statements about the start of withdrawal from the areas of the exercise require more detailed information and verification.

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