U.S., NATO say no signs Russia pulling back troops

WASHINGTON — No Russian troops were withdrawn from the border with Ukraine, a senior Biden administration official told reporters Wednesday night, disputing Moscow’s claim that it was pulling back some forces.

“We now know it was false,” the official said, adding that as many as 7,000 troops have joined the 150,000 already near the border in recent days.

The official said troops were arriving as recently as Wednesday and Moscow could launch a false pretext to invade Ukraine at any moment. The official also gave one of the grimmest assessments yet for the possibility of reaching a diplomatic solution to avoid war.

“Russia keeps saying it wants to pursue a diplomatic solution, their actions indicate otherwise,” the official said. “We hope they will change course before starting a war that will bring catastrophic death and destruction.”

Moscow has said it was pulling back some of the 150,000 troops that the United States and its allies warn have converged around Ukraine on three sides. But with the world searching for signs that a deadly new conflict on European soil might be averted, days of high-stakes signaling from Russia were met with skepticism by the West.

“We continue to see critical units moving toward the border, not away from the border,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on MSNBC on Wednesday. “There’s what Russia says and then there’s what Russia does. We haven’t seen any pullback of its forces.”

He added, “It would be good if they followed through on what they said, but so far we haven’t seen it.”

In Kyiv, where Ukraine’s leaders have sought to play down that alarm, the country held a defiant national day of unity.

Meanwhile, in an apparent bid to back up its claims of a partial withdrawal, the Russian defense ministry released video showing a trainload of armored vehicles moving across a bridge away from Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014.

That followed a similar announcement a day earlier, while Russian President Vladimir Putin also talked up the possibility of a diplomatic resolution to the crisis.

But leaders in Washington and Europe urged caution.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, tweeted Wednesday that “statements on withdrawal aren’t sufficient. We need transparency and facts.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels that in fact Russia had “increased the number of troops, and more troops are on the way.”

After meeting with NATO defense ministers Wednesday, Stoltenberg said at a press conference that the alliance has not seen “any sign of de-escalation on the ground, no withdrawals of troops or equipment.”

Russia has a “massive invasion force ready to attack with high-end capabilities from Crimea to Belarus,” Stoltenberg said, noting that it’s the largest build up of forces in Europe since the Cold War.

NATO sent “concrete proposals” on transparency, risk reduction and arms control and has not received a response from Russia, he said.

Stoltenberg described Russia’s efforts to use its military to “intimidate” other countries as “the new normal in Europe,” which he said has prompted defense ministers to develop options Wednesday to…