Russian troops in country’s south, west start returning to garrisons: Defense Ministry

Russia on Tuesday said some of its troops that took part in military drills have started returning to the places of their permanent deployment.

The units of the Western and Southern military districts have already started boarding trains and auto transport as military drills are coming to the end, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

Konashenkov added that the military attaches of the foreign embassies in Belarus will observe the last stage of the Russian-Belarusian military drill Allied Resolve-2022, including the combat firings at the Obuz-Lesnevsky training site on Feb. 19.

However, Konashenkov said, large-scale military training continues and almost all military districts and the Airborne forces are taking part in it.

According to the Defense Ministry, the Russian-Belarusian joint military drill Allied Resolve 2022 will last until Feb. 20.

Commenting on reports about the Russian troop withdrawal, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said at a news briefing on Tuesday that Ukraine together with its Western allies managed to stop "further escalation of the current crisis with Russia."

Moscow, according to Ukrainian officials, recently amassed more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine, prompting fears that the Kremlin could be planning a military offensive against its ex-Soviet neighbor.

Russia has denied it is preparing to invade and accused Western countries of undermining its security through NATO’s expansion towards its borders.

Russia also issued a list of security demands to the West, including a rollback of troop deployments from some ex-Soviet states, and guarantees that some of those states would not join NATO.

In a written response to those demands, Washington said it is committed to upholding NATO's “open door policy,” while NATO also conveyed the alliance's own reply “in parallel with the United States.”