(NewsNation Now) — The Russian Defense Military said Tuesday that some troops are returning to their bases after completing drills near the Ukrainian border, the latest development as the world watches for a Russian invasion into Ukraine that U.S. officials have said is imminent.
However, NewsNation’s Leland Vittert, host of “On Balance With Leland Vittert,” said there hasn’t been any other evidence that Russia has actually pulled back its troops.
NATO and Western governments said they haven’t seen any signs of de-escalation so far on Tuesday, and Russia gave no details on how many troops were withdrawing, nor from where they were pulling back.
“If you want to go back to the Cuban Missile Crisis, where Robert Kennedy famously said ‘We were eye-to eye with the Russians and they just blinked,’ the Russians haven’t blinked yet, but perhaps they are looking away at this point,” Vittert said. “So, very, very, very, very unclear whether this is a head fake, whether this is a chance to see how the United States and our allies are going to react again before then ramping things up again.”
Invasion fears have grown since Russia massed more than 130,000 troops near Ukraine.
The belligerent tone heard from the Russians earlier has been dialed back just a bit, Vittert added.
A visit by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz could have something to do with this, Vittert said.
“It could also just be a complete lie by Vladimir Putin, who learned his craft (from) the KGB,” Vittert said. “You have to really watch very closely what the Russians are doing, not what they’re saying.”
The Biden administration, caught “flat-footed” and still reeling from criticism over the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, has raised its level of rhetoric over what’s happening in Ukraine, Vittert said.
“They do not want to be accused of underestimating a threat again when it comes to sanctions,” he said.
When it does come to sanctions against Russia, this could mean taking away Putin’s bank accounts, impounding his yachts and jets, as well as restricting his travel, and doing the same for other members of his inner circle.
“That is something that could have had a really chilling effect on Putin’s desire to invade Ukraine, because on one hand, he has his desire to put the Soviet Union back together and return Mother Russia to glory,” Vittert said. “On the other hand, he has his billions or hundreds of billions of dollars in personal wealth and all of his oligarch buddies’ personal wealth that would hang in the balance.”
