Putin orders troops to pull back from border

 

 East-West tensions over Ukraine eased on Tuesday as President Vladimir Putin said he saw no need “for now” to send troops to the neighbouring state and ordered Russian armed forces to be pulled back from Ukraine’s border.“As for the use of armed forces, there is no such need for now,” Mr. Putin said in his first public comments on the Ukraine crisis.Describing use of force as a choice of “last, very last resort,” Mr. Putin warned that he could still go for it if the violence that swept Kiev in recent weeks spilled over to Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern regions.Looking relaxed and confident Mr. Putin fielded questions on Ukraine from Russian and foreign journalists for about 90 minutes at a news conference at his state residence outside Moscow.“If people ask us for help — and we have a formal request from [Ukraine’s] legitimate President – we reserve the right to use all means available to protect those citizens,” Mr. Putin said.Addressing a U.N. Security Council emergency meeting on Monday Russia’s Ambassador Vitaly Churkin read out a letter Ukraine’s ousted President Viktor Yanukovych sent to Mr. Putin asking him to use military force in Ukraine to help restore law and order.Mr. Putin denied Russian troops had been deployed in Ukraine’s Crimea. He said the masked armed men who had taken full control of the peninsula were “local forces of self-defence.”The Russian leader confirmed that 1,50,000 troops who had been holding snap military drills near the Ukrainian border over the past seven days were returning to their bases.Asked if he felt concerned that a war could break out in Ukraine, Mr. Putin said: “I’m not worried because we have no plans and will not fight a war against the people of Ukraine.”He said Russia had no intention to annex Crimea. “We are not considering this option. I think only people living on a territory can and should decide their future.”Recalling the case of Kosovo, which gained independence from Serbia, and the right to self-determination enshrined in U.N. documents, Mr. Putin said: “But we will never provoke anybody to take such a decision and will never encourage such sentiments.”While Mr. Putin’s comments helped defuse tensions, the rift between Russia and the West over Ukraine appeared to be widening.Even as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Kiev on Tuesday in a high-profile gesture of support for Ukraine’s new authorities, Mr. Putin denounced the makeover of power in Ukraine as an “unconstitutional coup and armed power grab.”As Mr. Kerry prepared to meet Ukraine’s Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov and Acting Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Mr. Putin said both were “illegitimate” and insisted that Mr. Yanukovych was still the lawful President, even if he “has no political future.”Asked about U.S. threat to penalise Russia, Mr. Putin warned that sanctions would “hurt both sides.”Mr. Putin’s economic adviser Sergei Glazyev said on Tuesday that should the U.S. resort to sanctions, Moscow might drop the dollar as a reserve currency and refuse to repay loans to U.S. banks.

As the Ukrainian Parliament ratified an agreement with the European Union to receive a 610-million Euro loan and the U.S. offered another $1 billion in loan guarantees, Mr. Putin said Gazprom would scrap a heavy price discount it extended to Ukraine in December because of piling debts for earlier supplies.