Russian forces 'gradually withdrawing' from Ukraine

Ukraine on Monday reported a partial withdrawal of Russian troops from its border amid growing signs the Kremlin was ready to de-escalate the worst East-West standoff since the Cold War.

The announcement came in the wake of a four-hour meeting in Paris between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that ended with an exchange of political proposals and an agreement to talk again soon.

And in Berlin German Chancellor Angela Merkel's office said Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally informed her of the troop pullback in a phone call Monday, but provided no other details.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the troop movements "a small sign that the situation is becoming less tense".

Both Western powers and the new pro-European interim leaders in Kiev have been increasingly worried that the Kremlin intends to seize heavily Russified southeastern parts of Ukraine after annexing its Crimea peninsula in response to the fall in February of the Moscow-backed president in Kiev.

Yet any seeming easing of Russia's position was countered by an unannounced visit to Crimea by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev -- the most senior Moscow official to visit the Black Sea peninsula since its March 16 vote to join Kremlin rule.

The Ukrainian defence ministry said the start of the Russian troop drawdown appeared to coincide in timing with a phone call that Putin had unexpectedly placed to US President Barack Obama about the crisis on Friday evening.

"In recent days, the Russian forces have been gradually withdrawing from the border," the ministry's general staff spokesman Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskiy told AFP in a telephone interview.

Dmytrashkivskiy said he could not confirm how many soldiers were involved or the number of troops still stationed in the border region. US and EU officials had earlier estimated that Russia's sudden military buildup had reached 30,000 to 40,000 troops.

Kiev's Centre for Military and Political Studies analyst Dmytro Tymchuk said that his sources had told him Russia had only 10,000 soldiers stationed near Ukraine by Monday morning.

Kiev said it had not been formally notified of the drawdown by Moscow and therefore could not say why the soldiers were being moved.

"This could be linked to a regular rotation of soldiers," said Dmytrashkivskiy.

"Or it may be linked to the Russian-US negotiations."            

Russia's defence ministry confirmed on Monday it had relocated one battalion -- usually comprised of about 500 soldiers -- that had been stationed near Ukraine back to its permanent base but reported no other movement of troops.

Kerry's hastily arranged meeting with Lavrov that Washington had hoped would help it gauge any shift in Putin's thinking concluded without any evident change in Russia's stance.

Lavrov reiterated Moscow's demand that Ukraine be turned into a federation in which the regions enjoy broader autonomy from Kiev and have the right to declare Russian as a second official language.

The Kremlin said Putin also pressed that line firmly in his latest telephone conversation with Merkel.

"Putin stressed the importance of holding constitutional reforms," a Kremlin statement said.

Washington is not against the idea of constitutional changes but remains wary that the Kremlin wants to use decentralisation as a tool for vetoing Kiev decisions in southeastern regions whose Russian speakers Putin has vowed to "protect".

Kerry insisted after the meeting that he did not discuss the federation idea with Lavrov in detail because Ukrainian officials had not been invited to Paris.

"We will not accept a path forward where the legitimate government of Ukraine is not at the table. This principle is clear. No decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine," Kerry said.

Ukraine's new leaders have been willing to give more authority to local legislatures and allow the regions to elect their own governors -- administrators who are appointed by Kiev today.

But they also refuse to grant regions the right to set up their own economic and social policies that could theoretically boost their reliance on Russia.

"Lavrov, Putin and Medvedev can suggest as many ideas as they want for resolving Russia's problems -- but not for resolving our problems," Ukraine's acting President Oleksandr Turchynov told reporters on Monday.

"There are no grounds for Ukraine's federalisation."

Kerry stressed on Sunday that Washington still viewed Crimea's annexation as "illegal and illegitimate".

But analysts note that the West appears to have accepted Ukraine's loss of the strategic region and is now more concerned about the Kremlin's perceived attempts to splinter the rest of the nation of 46 million.

Medvedev defiantly reasserted Russia's claim over Crimea on Monday by leading a delegation of cabinet ministers to its main city of Simferopol and then making a side trip to Sevastopol -- an historic port that has housed tsarist and Kremlin navies since the 18th century.

The close Putin ally promised to modernise Crimea's crumbling infrastructure by turning the region into a "special economic zone" of Russia that would attract investments through lower tax rates.

Ukraine's foreign ministry denounced Medvedev's visit as "a grave violation... of international law".