Russia Ukraine News Highlights | Russia announced a new drawdown of military forces from the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula on Thursday, despite Ukraine's Western allies meeting similar announcements with scepticism.
"Units of the southern military district that ended tactical exercises at training grounds on the Crimean peninsula are returning by rail to their permanent bases," the defence ministry said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.
State-run television showed columns of military hardware crossing a recently-constructed bridge connecting the peninsula to the Russian mainland.
Thursday's announcement is the latest reported drawdown of a Russian military force estimated by the West to be more than 100,000 troops, which Washington had said could be preparing to invade.
NATO, the United States and European leaders have denied, however, that there is any meaningful pullback of Russian troops and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow's military personnel were actually rotating.
Russia took control of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and threw its weight behind pro-Moscow separatists in fighting that broke out that year and has claimed more than 14,000 lives.
Russian-backed separatist authorities in eastern Ukraine said on Friday that a parked jeep with nobody inside had been blown up near a government building in the centre of the city of Donetsk.
A news outlet for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic urged residents to remain calm and not to move around the city if possible.
Nobody was reported to have been hurt in the explosion.
A Reuters witness said the jeep had been completely torn apart.
Estonia delivered U.S.-made Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine on Friday, the Estonian defence ministry said.
"At the moment, these missiles are more useful for Estonia's security in defence of Ukraine rather than at a live fire exercise on an Estonian training area," Lieutenant General Martin Herem, Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces, said in a statement.
"This is a small step by Estonia in support of Ukraine, but it is a real and tangible contribution to defence against Russian aggression."
The shoulder-operated medium-range missiles guide themselves after launching, allowing the shooter to take cover, according to the ministry.
NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said on Jan. 21 they will provide Ukraine with U.S.-made anti-armour and anti-aircraft missiles, days after receiving clearance from the U.S. State Department to send U.S.-made missiles and other weapons there.
Ukraine on Friday called on the international community to condemn what it said were provocations by Russia in separatist-held eastern Ukrainian areas, saying that Moscow would only escalate the situation further if it did not.
The Ukrainian government has strongly denied suggestions by Russia that it could launch an offensive in eastern Ukraine, where residents from two self-proclaimed republics received were ordered to evacuate.
"...we are watching the Russian Federation launch a campaign to spread mass disinformation, increase shelling of Ukrainian positions and civilian infrastructure with weapons banned by the Minsk agreements, and escalate the security situation," the foreign ministry's spokesman said in a statement.
"Lack of a proper reaction or a neutral position will only fuel the escalation of the situation by Russia."
President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered the Russian government to house and feed people leaving two self-proclaimed east Ukrainian breakaway republics once they arrived in southern Russia.
Russian-backed separatists announced the sudden surprise evacuation of their regions earlier on Friday, a shock turn in a conflict the West believes Moscow plans to use to justify an all-out invasion of its neighbour.
A Kremlin statement said Putin had ordered the minister responsible for dealing with emergency situations to travel to southern Russia to organise accommodation for what the Kremlin called "refugees from Donbass."
"The president...instructed (the minister) to fly urgently to the region to organise work to create the conditions to house people, provide hot meals and everything needed, including medical care," the statement said.
Putin had also ordered every person who arrived from Donbass to be given a payment of 10,000 roubles ($129), it added.
Gold retreated slightly from the key $1,900-per-ounce level on February 18 as hopes for United States-Russia talks brought some calm to wider markets, but lingering concerns over Ukraine kept bullion on track for a third straight weekly gain.
Spot gold was down 0.1% at $1,895.91 per ounce by 10:12 a.m. ET (1512 GMT), after earlier touching its highest since June 2021 at $1,902.22, en route to a weekly gain of about 1.9%.
United States Vice President Kamala Harris met NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and leaders from three Baltic nations on Friday and said Russia must show it is open to diplomacy, while warning Moscow of severe consequences if it invades Ukraine.
The Russian defense ministry said earlier in the day that President Vladimir Putin would on Saturday oversee exercises by Russia's nuclear forces involving the launch of ballistic and cruise missiles.
Heralding NATO unity, Harris said "an attack on one is an attack on all," and the United States and its allies were ready to respond with sanctions if Putin decided to invade Ukraine.
"We understand and we have made clear that we remain open to diplomacy. The onus is on Russia at this point, to demonstrate that it is serious in that regard," Harris said.
European shares erased earlier gains and the ruble slipped sharply from a session high after a separatist leader in eastern Ukraine announced the evacuation of his breakaway region's residents to Russia, a shock turn in the crisis.
The dollar rebounded and the safe-haven Swiss franc rose as sentiment that had improved on news late Thursday that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken would meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov next week soured.
Russia is ready to invade Ukraine but the Kremlin could use an unconventional attack on its former Soviet neighbour which might require the West to make a swift judgment call on the imposition of Russian sanctions, a senior Western official said.
Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine said on Friday they planned to evacuate their breakaway region's residents to Russia, a stunning turn in a conflict the West believes Moscow could use to justify an invasion of Ukraine.
United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu on Friday and called for de-escalation in the crisis over Ukraine, the Pentagon said. "Austin called for de-escalation, the return of Russian forces surrounding Ukraine to their home bases, and a diplomatic resolution," a Pentagon readout of the call said.
Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine said on Friday they planned to evacuate their breakaway region's residents to Russia, a shock turn in a conflict the West believes Moscow plans to use to justify an all-out invasion of its neighbour.
Announcing the move on social media, Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said Russia had agreed to provide accommodation for those who leave. Women, children and the elderly should be evacuated first. The other self-proclaimed region, Luhansk, made a similar announcement.
Millions of civilians are believed to live in the two rebel-held regions of eastern Ukraine; most are Russian speakers and many have already been granted Russian citizenship.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia needed to work on increasing its economic sovereignty and that the West would always find a pretext to impose sanctions on Moscow.
The West has threatened Russia with major sanctions if it invades Ukraine after the Kremlin massed forces near its former Soviet neighbour. Moscow denies planning to invade. Putin made the remark at a news conference in Moscow.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that weapons prohibited under the Minsk peace process were being used in what he called an alarming and sharp increase in shelling in eastern Ukraine, the TASS news agency reported.
Addressing a news conference in Moscow, Lavrov accused the OSCE special monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine of trying to gloss over ceasefire violations by Ukrainian government forces, Interfax news agency reported.
European nations are preparing sanctions against Russia that will be much harsher than those imposed after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, Poland's prime minister said on Friday.
"We are constructing a package of concrete sanctions, which are to be much stronger than those from 2014," Mateusz Morawiecki told a news conference in Brussels broadcast by state-owned news channel TVP.
Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian rebels reported increased shelling in eastern Ukraine for a second straight day on Friday, an escalation that Washington and other Western allies say could form part of a Russian pretext to invade.
