Putin Briefs Merkel on Ukraine Border Troop Withdrawal
Russian President Vladimir Putin informed German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday about the partial withdrawal of troops he ordered from a region on the border with Ukraine, her office said.
"Moreover the two discussed further possible steps to stabilize the situation in Ukraine and Transdniestr," Moldova's largely Russian-speaking breakaway region, Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.
"They agreed to stay in close contact."
The Russian defense ministry on Monday said it was pulling back a battalion from a region on the border with Ukraine but it was not clear if this was linked to a wider troop movement to defuse tensions.
A battalion from the central military district's 15th motorized infantry brigade finished manoeuvres at the Kadamovsky range in the Rostov region bordering Ukraine and would now return to its home region of Samara on the Volga, the defense ministry said in a statement to Russian news agencies.
Ukraine and the United States have accused Russia of massing tens of thousands of troops on the eastern Ukrainian border.
A Ukrainian defense ministry official had told Agence France Presse in Kiev earlier Monday that Russian forces have began a gradual withdrawal from the Ukrainian border.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier welcomed the developments, saying they "seem to be a small sign that the situation is becoming less tense".
Putin also told Merkel that Ukraine needs constitutional reform.
"Discussing various aspects of the situation in Ukraine... Putin stressed the importance of holding constitutional reforms" in Ukraine, the Kremlin said.
Russia has called for Western powers to urge Ukraine to change its constitution to allow greater autonomy for regions in the south and east where ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers are concentrated.
The Kremlin said that Merkel and Putin also discussed Moldova's largely Russian-speaking breakaway region of Transdniestr, which lies on part of Moldova's border with Ukraine.
Putin raised "the need to take effective measures aimed at lifting an effective blockade from the outside of this region," it said.
Moscow has complained that Transdniestr is being blockaded by Moldova and Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday that "Chisinau and the new Ukrainian authorities have practically organised a blockade" of Transdniestr.
"What's more, the European Union and, as I understand it, the United States, encourage such a line," Lavrov added.
The takeover of Crimea from Ukraine by Russia has raised fears in other ex-Soviet countries of similar moves on Russian-speaking separatist regions.
Officials in Transdniestr this month appealed to lawmakers in Moscow to pass legislation that could see the region absorbed into Russia.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland on a visit to Chisinau on Sunday said the U.S. was giving Moldova an extra $10 million to strengthen its borders.
Transdniestr, a strip of land on the Ukranian border that is economically dependent on the Kremlin, seceded from Moldova in 1992 after a civil war.
Residents in the region, which has never been recognized as an independent state by any United Nations member, voted overwhelmingly to join Russia in a 2006 referendum and Moscow still maintains thousands of troops there.
Source: Agence France Presse
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