As Russia Welcomes Talks, Biden Warns Invasion Is Nonetheless Doable

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin mentioned on Tuesday that Russia would “partially pull again troops” deployed close to Ukraine and was searching for a “diplomatic path” to resolving a tense standoff with the West, whereas President Biden welcomed additional negotiations however warned {that a} Russian invasion “stays very a lot a risk.’’

It was the second day in a row that Moscow appeared to swerve away from confrontation over Ukraine, following its declaration on Monday that diplomatic choices have been “far from exhausted.’’

“We intend to and can try to achieve settlement with our companions on the questions that we posed, with a purpose to resolve them by taking a diplomatic path,” Mr. Putin mentioned, standing alongside Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany on the Kremlin.

Mr. Putin’s willingness to proceed discussions was welcomed hours later by President Biden, who vowed in afternoon remarks from the White Home to “give the diplomacy each likelihood” to forestall a Russian invasion.

“So long as there’s hope of a diplomatic decision that stops using drive and avoids unbelievable human struggling that will comply with,” Mr. Biden mentioned, “we are going to pursue it.”

Mr. Biden cautioned, nonetheless, that Russian forces stay “in a threatening place” — an evaluation that echoed the dire warning issued by the Pentagon simply 4 days in the past, that Russia might launch an assault as early as Wednesday.

The urgency of that warning appeared to recede on Tuesday as Mr. Putin adopted a extra conciliatory tone and introduced the intention to tug again troops. However a lot of Russia’s menacing drive close to Ukraine’s border remained in place, and Western officers mentioned it was far too quickly to exhale over the hazard that Mr. Putin might launch a large-scale warfare. In addition they mentioned it was too early to evaluate Moscow’s declare that it was pulling troops again from Ukraine’s border.

“The Russian protection ministry reported at this time that some navy items are leaving the positions close to Ukraine. That may be good,” Mr. Biden mentioned. “However we have now not but verified that.’’

The Biden administration has threatened extreme financial sanctions within the occasion of an invasion, whereas providing negotiations on a few of Russia’s safety issues.

The carrot-and-stick method, and the blended indicators from Moscow, illustrated the gamesmanship and the high-stakes rhetorical ways which have marked the disaster over Russia’s troop buildup. America has been declassifying intelligence on Russia’s plans and sounding pressing warnings a few looming assault, in what American officers describe as a technique meant to discourage Mr. Putin from going by way of with an invasion.

Mr. Putin, against this, has saved his true intentions a thriller, mixing threats and navy strikes with optimistic value determinations concerning the potential for diplomacy — statements which have grown louder in current days. International Minister Sergey V. Lavrov spoke with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Tuesday and mentioned the West had “responded positively” to Russia’s initiatives.

On the similar time, the Russian chief and different senior officers on Tuesday made it clear that they noticed the navy menace as a device for forcing the West to acknowledge a Russian sphere of affect in Japanese Europe — and that they have been ready to proceed to maintain the stress on as negotiations continued.

Mr. Lavrov mentioned he was open to American proposals resembling negotiations over the location of missiles in Europe; the end result, he mentioned, may very well be a “very respectable, complete bundle end result.”

Requested on Tuesday how Russia would act subsequent, Mr. Putin responded with a slight smile: “In response to the plan.”

He mentioned Russia would search to attain its key goals — centered on halting NATO enlargement and forcing the alliance to attract down its navy presence in Japanese Europe — peacefully, however that the end result of the method “doesn’t solely rely on us.”

American officers have dismissed these calls for as non-starters, and talking from the East Room of the White Home, Mr. Biden promised to not “sacrifice primary ideas” that accord nations a proper to decide on their very own alliances.

The president additionally reached out to the Russian individuals, after warning {that a} warfare would trigger nice human struggling. “America and NATO are usually not a menace to Russia,” he mentioned, including: “You aren’t our enemy.”

Regardless of the optimism Tuesday, the diplomatic path forward was removed from clear. Russia’s International Ministry mentioned it will quickly ship, and make public, a 10-page response to safety proposals that the US and NATO submitted final month. Italy’s international minister was scheduled to go to Moscow on Wednesday.

However past that, after a flurry of high-level Western telephone calls and conferences with Mr. Putin and Mr. Lavrov, the diplomatic calendar appeared empty. Russia has mentioned it’ll skip the Munich Safety Convention this weekend, which had been a marquee annual occasion for Western officers to sit down down with their Russian counterparts.

“We don’t know what occurs subsequent and the way issues will proceed,” Mr. Scholz mentioned after assembly for 3 hours with Mr. Putin. “However we are able to positively say: there are sufficient beginning factors for issues to develop nicely.”

Russia is demanding a assure that Ukraine won’t ever be part of NATO, which leaders of the alliance describe as not more than a far-off prospect that isn’t at the moment into consideration. Ukrainian officers instructed this week that their nation’s constitutionally enshrined aspiration to affix NATO may very well be up for negotiation with a purpose to avert warfare.

Mr. Scholz, who took over as chancellor in December, hinted that discovering settlement amongst Russia, Ukraine and NATO on that difficulty may very well be a means out of the disaster.

“Everybody should step again a bit right here and make it clear to themselves that we simply can’t have a doable navy battle over a query that isn’t on the agenda,” Mr. Scholz advised German reporters in Moscow after leaving the Kremlin. “It’s now our activity to discover a path that’s OK for everybody when it comes to their very own positions and views.”

The White Home warned last week {that a} Russian invasion of Ukraine might occur “any time,” together with earlier than the Winter Olympics finish on Feb. 20.

On Tuesday, Russia appeared to relish a possibility to show the US fallacious. A Protection Ministry spokesman delivered an announcement saying that some troops close to Ukraine had “accomplished their duties” and have been heading again to their bases; state tv aired footage of tanks being loaded onto rail vehicles.

Quickly after, Mr. Lavrov predicted that the West would quickly be taking credit score for staving off an invasion that Russia actually by no means deliberate, whereas Mr. Putin’s spokesman mentioned the president had began jokingly asking “whether or not the precise time the warfare will begin has been printed someplace.”

Western officers mentioned it was too quickly to inform whether or not the introduced pullback would scale back the menace on Ukraine’s borders, however in Brussels, Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of NATO, mentioned indicators from Moscow gave grounds for “cautious optimism.”

However it was additionally clear that Mr. Putin might preserve stress on the West and on Ukraine with out firing a shot — together with by new navy strikes or different means like cyberattacks. On Tuesday night, Ukraine’s protection ministry and armed forces, in addition to the interfaces of the nation’s two largest banks, have been hit by cyberattacks that triggered some web sites to go down and triggered issues for patrons searching for to withdraw money.

And in Moscow, the Kremlin-controlled decrease home of Parliament, the State Duma, gave Mr. Putin one other bargaining chip by voting to ask him to acknowledge the Russian-backed separatist territories in Ukraine’s east as unbiased states. Such a transfer would open the door for Russia to formally transfer its troops into the area, and will spark new combating as a result of these unrecognized states declare extra territory as rightfully theirs than they at the moment management.

In his information convention with Mr. Scholz, Mr. Putin repeated unfounded claims that Ukraine is finishing up a “genocide” towards Russian audio system within the area, often known as the Donbas, however indicated that he wouldn’t instantly acknowledge the territories’ independence.

As a substitute, Mr. Putin mentioned he would maintain pushing for implementation of the Minsk peace accords negotiated by Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France in 2015. Of their Russian interpretation, the accords would in impact rule out NATO membership for Ukraine by permitting Russian-backed proxies in japanese Ukraine to veto foreign-policy choices.

In Ukraine, worries a few doable Russian invasion remained.

“Once we see the withdrawal, we are going to imagine in de-escalation,” the international minister, Dmytro Kuleba, advised reporters.

Western officers and analysts mentioned the menace to Ukraine remained important, and that it was too early to make agency conclusions a few doable drawdown with out extra details about which items have been being despatched again to their bases. The Russian Protection Ministry solely introduced a withdrawal of items from the nation’s Western and Southern Navy Districts, whose standard bases are the closest to Ukraine, so the items might simply return to the border area.

Models from the Central and Japanese districts, that are a few of Russia’s most superior, stay deployed and in current days have arrayed themselves in assault formations in positions inside just a few dozen miles of the Ukraine border, in line with satellite tv for pc imagery.

“I wouldn’t learn an excessive amount of into this but,” Rob Lee, an knowledgeable on Russia’s navy, mentioned of Moscow’s declaration that it was pulling again troops.

Mr. Lee, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Ph.D. candidate at King’s School in London, and others famous that Russia has prior to now introduced troop withdrawals solely to go away weaponry and tools in place for straightforward redeployment. It did this after the same buildup close to Ukraine final April in addition to after giant navy workouts in late summer time.

Anton Troianovski reported from Moscow and Michael D. Shear from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Valerie Hopkins and Andrew E. Kramer from Kyiv, Ukraine; Michael Schwirtz Schwirtz from Kherson, Ukraine; Steven Erlanger from Brussels; and Katrin Bennhold from Berlin.