Russia eases military pressure but restates Ukraine demands

Russia has recalled some forces from near Ukraine and its cabinet has paid a controversial visit to annexed Crimea as Germany's finance minister compared Moscow's actions to those of Adolf Hitler.

Chancellor Angela Merkel played down Wolfgang Schäuble's comments yesterday and discussed Ukraine with Russian president Vladimir Putin, who told her about the troop movements while reiterating his concerns about Ukraine and neighbouring Moldova.

“The Russian president informed the chancellor about the partial withdrawal of Russian troops [and] the two discussed further possible steps to stabilise the situation in Ukraine and Transdniestria,” said Dr Merkel’s spokesman.

Transdniestria is a Russian- speaking separatist province of Moldova, propped up by Moscow since breaking with the central government in the early 1990s. Transdniestria adjoins southwest Ukraine and complains that Kiev is imposing a "blockade" on the frontier.

Manoeuvres
After Russia annexed Crimea, one senior Transdniestrian official asked Russia to do the same with his region, fuelling fears that the crisis over Ukraine – the worst to hit East-West relations since the Cold War – threatened to engulf Moldova, another ex-Soviet state whose government is trying to reduce Russian influence and move towards to the EU. Russia's defence ministry said a battalion from the central military district's 15th motorised infantry brigade was returning to base near the Volga river after finishing manoeuvres in the Rostov region bordering Ukraine. A battalion can comprise between 300 and 1,200 troops.

The Kremlin said Mr Putin also “stressed the importance of conducting constitutional reforms” in Ukraine, where he wants Kiev to give broad powers to the regions, including largely Russian-speaking eastern areas. Ukraine’s pro-EU leaders say Moscow wants to weaken Kiev’s government to destabilise the country and block its planned integration with the west.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US secretary of state John Kerry spoke by telephone last night, a day after holding talks in Paris. Washington and the EU imposed sanctions on some Russian officials and businessmen after Moscow sent troops into Crimea and then annexed it, claiming to be defending its Russian-speakers from "fascist" supporters of Kiev's new government.

Sudetenland
"We know all about that from history. Those are the methods that Hitler used to take over the Sudetenland," Mr Schäuble told students yesterday, referring to the Nazi leader's claim to be protecting ethnic Germans when he annexed the Czechoslovak region in 1938.

Dr Merkel said later: “I consider the annexation of Crimea to be a unique case.”

Ignoring Ukraine’s protests, Russia’s government held a special meeting on the Black Sea peninsula yesterday.

"No resident of Crimea . . . should lose anything as a result of joining Russia, they should only gain," said prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, who arrived in Crimea yesterday in the first visit by a senior official since Russia annexed the peninsula.

“This is what people are expecting from us, that we provide the conditions for a stable and decent life and the feeling that they are part of a great nation,” he added. “We must meet these expectations.”

Dmitry Rogozin, an outspoken deputy prime minister, said on Twitter: "Crimea is ours. Basta!"