“We can say that the signals we are hearing in the negotiations are positive, but they do not make us forget the explosions or the Russian shells.” In a video message released Tuesday, March 29, President Volodymyr Zelensky perfectly summed up the international community’s skepticism after promises of de-escalation on the Ukrainian front came from Moscow.
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Following talks held in Istanbul on Tuesday, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin announced that his country would “radically reduce [son] military activity in the direction of kyiv and Chernihiv” in northern Ukraine. Here’s why most foreign powers remain cautious about Russian announcements.
Because she doubts a “real withdrawal”
After about five weeks of war, thousands of victims and millions of refugees, the Ukrainian army prefers not to be too happy about this Russian announcement. “The so-called ‘withdrawal of troops’ is probably a rotation of individual units, which aims to deceive the military command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces”commented the Ukrainian general staff in a press release on Tuesday evening.
The US Department of Defense also mentioned a “repositioning” Russian troops, not a “true withdrawal”. “It is very likely that Russia will seek to transfer its striking power from the north to the regions [séparatistes] from Donetsk and Luhansk to the east”abounded the British Ministry of Defense on its Twitter account.
Latest Defense Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 29 March 2022
Find out more about the UK government’s response: https://t.co/MGJpGUFJ8K
#StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/S5n4g27Sxe
—Ministry of Defense (@DefenceHQ) March 29, 2022
Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Minister of Defence, has also confirmed this himself. According to him, Russia has reached its “objective” : “The military potential of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been significantly reduced, which makes it possible to focus attention and efforts on the liberation of Donbass.”
“When Russia indicates that there is a drastic reduction in forces, in reality it is called a retreat, because there is a Ukrainian counter-offensive against Russian troops, both in the west and in east of Kyiv”analyzes Julien Théron, co-author of Putin, the strategy of disorderquestioned on franceinfo. These are elements of language. It’s a way of making a retreat appear as a movement of goodwill, of de-escalation.”
Because the bombings continue
In areas that are supposed to be less targeted by the Russian army from now on, the de-escalation promised by Moscow is for the moment quite relative. The warning sirens were thus heard several times during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday in kyiv. The situation also remains very difficult around the capital: the population flees the villages located east of the city, where the inhabitants assure that the Russian forces continue to carry out a brutal occupation.
Ukrainian authorities have also accused Moscow of having bombed the city of Chernihiv in the north of the country all night. “The situation does not change, Chernihiv is under artillery and aerial bombardment”, according to Viatcheslav Tchaous, the regional governor. Ihe city, which had 280,000 inhabitants before the war, is without water, without electricity and without communications. “And we can’t fix them anymore”, he added. The governor also mentioned strikes on Nijyne, in the same region.
‘Cause it could be a bluff
For the allies of Ukraine, it will above all be necessary to judge Moscow on paper. “We will see if they keep their word”US President Joe Biden told the press. In London, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not say anything else: the United Kingdom will judge “Putin and his regime on his deeds, not his words”he said.
Same story on the French side: “We will judge the actions and not the announcements”reacted Anne-Claire Legendre, spokeswoman for the Quai d’Orsay. “We have also seen, on other grounds, Russia play the game of negotiation to save time, to maintain a certain confusion in the minds of public opinion, so we have to assess all that”she detailed at the microphone of franceinfo.
“It reminds me of the negotiations on Syriaobserves expert Julien Théron on franceinfo. About ten years ago, in the Geneva process, the negotiations were absolutely interminable, which can be considered as a delaying process to gain time. In reality, the few times there had been an agreement, it had not been implemented.”