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Tags: secretary of state | antony blinken | troops | invasion | military

Secretary Blinken: No Evidence of Russian Troops Withdrawing

(ABC News' "Good Morning America")

By    |   Wednesday, 16 February 2022 10:53 AM EST

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday there had been no evidence of Russian troops pulling back from the Ukraine border despite claims to the contrary.

It was reported earlier Wednesday that the TASS news agency said Russian forces surrounding Ukraine were withdrawing and troops in the west of the country will return to normal in three to four weeks.

Appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America," Blinken was asked if the U.S. was seeing evidence Russia was pulling back its troops.

"We're not," Blinken told host George Stephanopoulos. "Unfortunately, there's a difference between what Russia says and what it does.

"What we're seeing is no meaningful pullback. On the contrary, we continue to see forces, especially forces that would be in the vanguard of any renewed aggressions against Ukraine, continuing to be at the border, to mass at the border."

Blinken said the U.S. still believed Russia could invade Ukraine at any moment. President Joe Biden said Tuesday there were 150,000 Russian troops amassed to the north, south, and east of Ukraine.

"We said that we were in a window of time in which the invasion could come at any time," Blinken told ABC. "President [Vladimir] Putin's put in place the capacity to act on very short notice. He can pull the trigger. He could pull it today. He could pull it tomorrow. He could pull it next week. The forces are there if he wants to renew aggression against Ukraine."

Ukrainians raised national flags and played the country's anthem Wednesday to show unity against fears of a Russian invasion that Western powers have said could be imminent.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said there had been no indication of Russian "de-escalation on the ground."

"On the contrary, it appears that Russia continues the military build-up," Stoltenberg said Wednesday. "And we have not received any response to our written document, our written proposals, that we sent to Russia on the 26th of January."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Russia has "grown tired" of listening to "threats," referring to Biden's speech on Tuesday.

"We'd prefer not to listen to various sorts of threats as to what would happen to us if we did something that we have no intention of doing," Peskov told reporters.

Also on Wednesday, Blinken condemned a vote by Russia's parliament to call on Putin to recognize two Russian-controlled breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent.

Russia's lower house of parliament voted Tuesday to ask Putin to recognize the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, and the European Union told Moscow not to follow through.

Reuters contributed to this story.

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday there had been no evidence of Russian troops pulling back from the Ukraine border despite claims to the contrary.
secretary of state, antony blinken, troops, invasion, military
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2022-53-16
Wednesday, 16 February 2022 10:53 AM
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