Putin 'ends western Russia drills'
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered troops participating in military exercises in western Russia near the Ukraine border to return to their permanent bases, the Interfax news agency reported.
Mr Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Interfax that the president had ordered the troops to return to their usual stations.
Mr Putin issued the order almost a week after Russia began massive exercises involving most military units in western Russia, stoking fears that the Kremlin might use the troops to seize territory in pro-Russian areas of eastern Ukraine.
Russian troops said to be 16,000 strong tightened their stranglehold on Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula over the weekend, openly defying calls by the US and European Union to withdraw from the region.
