Russia withdraws battalion from near Ukraine border

The Russian Defense Ministry has announced that it is withdrawing a battalion from a region on the border with Ukraine.

The ministry said in a Monday statement that a battalion from the central military district’s 15th motorized infantry brigade ended maneuvers at the Kadamovsky range in the Rostov region bordering Ukraine and would go back to its home region of Samara on the Volga.

Moscow, however, has not said whether other Russian troops would leave the region.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has informed German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday about the partial pulling out of troops from the region, Merkel’s office said.

Earlier on Monday, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s general staff spokesman had said that Russian forces began their gradual withdrawal from Ukraine’s border.

“In recent days, the Russian forces have been gradually withdrawing from the border,” Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskiy said.

The US and EU officials had estimated that Russia might have 30,000 to 40,000 troops near the border.

However, Kiev’s Center for Military and Political Studies analyst Dmytro Tymchuk suggested on Monday that Moscow had 10,000 soldiers stationed near Ukraine by Monday morning.

The Ukrainian crisis began last November, after the country’s then president, Viktor Yanukovych, refrained from signing an Association Agreement with the European Union in favor of closer ties with neighboring Russia.

The refusal triggered months of unrest and clashes with the police, which finally led to the ouster of Yanukovych on February 23. He then travelled to Russia, where he was given sanctuary.