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Did Russia's border pullback ease tensions in April 2021?
Summary
A look back at the days around 26 April 2021, when Moscow announced a troop pullback and Kyiv proposed a meeting in Donbas.
Was the confrontation on Ukraine's border winding down? On 26 April 2021, that was the question hanging over Kyiv and its western allies, following two announcements in the preceding days.
On 21 April 2021, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invited his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to a face-to-face meeting on the front line in the war-torn Donbas. The aim, he said, was to negotiate an end to the conflict.
On 22 April 2021, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it would begin moving its forces away from the Ukrainian border the following day. Ukraine and its western allies had accused Russia of trying to provoke conflict by moving troops to the border. Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu had claimed that the deployment was only to conduct drills.
The two developments left the picture on 26 April 2021 mixed. The troop movements had been publicly framed by Moscow as exercises, while Kyiv had offered a direct meeting with the Russian president in the conflict zone itself.
