Is Russia really easing up over Ukraine?

MOSCOW, Russia — The authorities said Wednesday that military units deployed near Ukraine’s border have begun returning to their bases, days before Ukrainians are set to vote in a landmark presidential election that until recently Moscow had slammed as “illegitimate.”

President Vladimir Putin said his order for their withdrawal ahead of the Sunday vote — which he’s now tacitly endorsed — was aimed at creating “favorable conditions” for the election. Both NATO and the United States, which estimates Russia deployed some 40,000 troops near Ukraine, say they’ve seen no sign of the withdrawal.

Nevertheless, the Kremlin’s actions — even if limited to rhetoric — are part of a trend that appears to be aimed at easing its standoff with the West.

It began earlier this month, when Putin surprised some observers by saying Ukraine’s presidential contest was “a step in the right direction” and appealing to pro-Moscow separatist leaders in the country’s east to postpone their May 11 independence referendum.

That vote went ahead anyway, but the Kremlin has remained tight-lipped about the plebiscite, which the Kyiv authorities and their Western allies have written off as illegal.

Although Russia has shown little interest in repeating the sort of land grab it staged earlier this year in Crimea, experts say Moscow is keeping its options open by watching from afar but not yet officially recognizing Sunday’s presidential election, signaled in part by its refusal to send official observers.

Andrei Buzin, co-chair of the independent Russian election watchdog Golos, which is sending its own team of monitors to Ukraine, says Russia is treating the vote “with great caution.”

“If [Russia] doesn’t send observers, then it has the opportunity to say afterward that ‘We didn’t see anything, that’s why we’re going to decide the question of this election’s legitimacy based on its results and on how the new authorities will conduct themselves,” he told Kommersant FM radio Wednesday.

The relative restraint doesn’t meant the Kremlin has changed its tune, however.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday, Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev accused the United States and Europe of invoking “Soviet” policies by discouraging Western business leaders from attending a major economic forum in St. Petersburg this week.

“We are slowly but surely moving toward a second Cold War, which no one needs,” he said.

More ominously, Medvedev also said Russia has no obligation to ensure Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

That comment appeared to contradict a 1994 treaty Moscow signed with the United States and Britain guaranteeing Ukraine’s borders in exchange for Kyiv giving up its nuclear arsenal.

“We believe the priority is to ease tensions in Ukraine,” he said. “Not to guarantee something to someone, but to ease tensions.”

Still, there are signs that Russia may be turning its geopolitical focus elsewhere amid the lengthy and unprecedented standoff with the West, which threatens to wreak further havoc on the Russian economy.

On Wednesday, the state energy giant Gazprom signed a major 30-year natural gas deal with China, which experts estimate is worth around $400 billion.

The long-awaited agreement would partially shift Russia away from the European energy market, which is looking to wean itself off Russian gas.

In the Bloomberg interview, Medvedev insisted the deal doesn’t amount to a political shift toward China.

But some observers say the reported backing down of Russian troops was partly meant to soothe Beijing.

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They also say it was aimed at domestic consumption in Russia, where Putin has enjoyed a soaring approval rating from the patriotic masses — fed with a steady stream of state television propaganda — who have so far approved of his position on Ukraine.

“The people will only be pleased — no one wanted a war,” Leonid Radzikhovsky, a prominent writer and liberal political commentator, wrote for the Echo of Moscow radio station on Tuesday.

“And Putin knew that very well,” he added. “It was not the only reason, but one of the biggest for his retreat.”