Report: Western Media Got It Wrong on Russian Troop Drawdown

[rangerrebew]

Report: Western Media Got It Wrong on Russian Troop Drawdown
Mil & Intel   

By Nolan Peterson | December 29, 2021

KYIV, Ukraine — On Christmas Day, multiple Western media outlets reported that Russia had removed some 10,000 soldiers from Ukraine’s borders. On social media, many prominent Russia watchers celebrated the move as a welcome sign that Russia may have backed down from its threats to wage a military offensive against Ukraine this winter.

Citing a Bloomberg story titled, “Russia Returns Some Troops to Base After Training Near Ukraine,” Serhii Plokhy, a noted historian and Ukraine expert, tweeted: “With the Russian officials drawing parallels with the Cuban missile crisis, is this ‘the other fellow just blinked’ moment?”

Referencing a similar story by Reuters, Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, tweeted: “Good sign.”

https://coffeeordie.com/western-media-got-it-wrong/

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Most of us on TBR knew immediately that all the, "Biden scares the Russians away from Ukraine", headlines were fake news.

[Kamaji]

Russia’s Southern Military District announced Dec. 25 that more than 10,000 troops had returned home from exercises located across a broad region of Russia, not only from some areas near Ukraine but also from the Caucasus and the Russian cities of Astrakhan (about 600 miles from Ukraine) and Volgograd (about 220 miles from Ukraine). Those troops also returned from as far away as Armenia and the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, all of which are hundreds of miles away from Ukraine.

Moreover, the Russian military announcement cited by many Western news reports did not frame the troop movement as a reduction on force readiness near Ukraine — just the opposite, actually. The Russian Southern Military District announced that its returning units will “maintain high combat readiness” to respond to “the consequences of possible emergencies” during the New Year holiday period.