Ukraine

Russia announced on Thursday it was ordering troops back to base from the area near the border with Ukraine, apparently calling an end to a buildup of tens of thousands of soldiers that had alarmed the West.

President Zelenskiy has invited Putin to meet him in eastern Ukraine for talks on ending the long-running conflict there. Kyiv has accused Russia of a massive troop buildup at the border.

The European Union says roughly 150,000 Russian troops are massed along the border of Ukraine and in Crimea — calling it the highest such military deployment. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell described Russia's military buildup on the Ukraine border and annexed Crimea as very worrying.

US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke by phone late on Wednesday. Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said that the two leaders agreed that it was necessary to call on Russia to reduce the latest troop reinforcements near the border to Ukraine, "in order to achieve a deescalation of

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin have discussed concerns as tensions increase between pro-Russia separatists and Ukrainian forces.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on NATO on Tuesday to lay out a path for Ukraine to join the Western military alliance, after days in which Russia has massed troops near the conflict-hit Donbas region. Zelenskiy’s comments drew an immediate rebuke from Moscow, which said Kyiv’s approach to NATO could further inflame the situation in Donbas, where violence has increased in recent days.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has warned of a “systemic aggravation” of the security situation in the country’s east and the Crimean Peninsula amid a recent spike of violence in the yearslong conflict between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists.

Just 14 hours before it was set to expire, OSCE participating States today extended the mandate of the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) for another year. The decision also included the approval of an approximately 100 million-euro budget for the OSCE’s flagship 730-monitor operation. The SMM will now enter its seventh year of operation.

The decree comes after the Constitutional Court in October struck down some anti-corruption legislation and curbed the powers of the National Anti-Corruption Agency (NAZK). The court decision dealt a blow to reforms demanded by the West and threatened to impact lending from the International Monetary Fund.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal says his country has accelerated reforms as it continues to move toward its goal of membership in the European Union and NATO.

72 Normal 0 21 false false false DE X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Normale Tabelle"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Cambria",serif;}