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What Russia's border drawdown announcement meant in April 2021
Summary
A look back at the diplomatic moment in late April 2021, when Moscow announced a pullback from the Ukrainian border and Kyiv proposed a meeting in Donbas.
What did Kyiv and Moscow have on the table by 27 April 2021? Two public moves from the days just before that date framed the picture.
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 Donbas. The aim, he said, was to negotiate an end to the war in the region.
On 22 April 2021, the Russian Defence 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 massing troops near the frontier. Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu had said the deployment was only for drills.
Taken together, the two announcements marked a moment in which both sides signalled a willingness to reduce tension, even as they disagreed on why the troops had been moved in the first place.
