Signs of de-escalation as Russia claims to pull back some troops

February 16, 2022

On Tuesday,  met with the  Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The main agenda was the ongoing crisis near the. On Monday, Scholz had visited Kiev, where he met with Volodymyr Zelensky and showed support to Ukraine against the Russian position.



After Tuesday's meeting, a joint press conference was held, in which Scholz said, "it is our absolute duty as heads of government that Europe does not see an escalation into war." When asked about the deployments and the threat of war, Putin said Russia does "not want war in Europe." He later added Russia is "ready to work further together" and "go down the negotiations track".

However, Putin called Russia's claims valid and described the situation in Ukraine's region as a 'genocide'. On Tuesday, the declared it had begun to pull back some of its troops and called the deployments a 'military drill'.

The German Chancellor said the withdrawal of some troops was a good sign. On the other hand, Ukraine's  said they wouldn't accept any claims by Russia until they see it themselves and added "if we see a withdrawal, we will believe in a de-escalation". NATO  welcomed Russia's response of a diplomatic solution but said it had not seen 'any sign of de-escalation on the ground' yet.