As the U.S. and its allies ratchet pressure up on Putin to move his forces back from the border, CBS News meets Ukrainian civilians hoping for peace, but getting 'prepared for war.'
"I know Russians very well," Oleksei Vasilchenko told Williams. The defense unit volunteer works in marketing, but told CBS News he served in the Soviet army before Ukraine gained its independence from Moscow just over 30 years ago.The defense unit volunteers include everyone from urban professionals to military veterans like Vasilchenko, to new recruits. Many are thus far armed only with plywood rifles — stand-ins for the real thing.
But in what appeared to be a continuation of the mixed messages coming from Moscow, even as it announced the command posts being set up in Belarus, the Russian military also said on Monday that some 6,000 troops deployed to the west of the country weeks ago, for"planned operational and combat training," had been moved back to their permanent bases.
Putin is still formulating his official response to proposals from Washington that were handed over last week as a reply to Russia's demands for"security guarantees from NATO. Moscow demanded that NATO pull its forces back from Russian border regions and reject any new bids for membership from former Soviet states — most importantly, Ukraine.
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