KIEV, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian government officials on Tuesday called for more diplomatic and practical international efforts to de-escalate tensions between Ukraine and Russia.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged Russia to pull back troops from the joint border to show a commitment to easing the tensions.
"If we see a withdrawal, we will believe in de-escalation," Kuleba told an online briefing Tuesday.
On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that part of the Russian armed forces participating in joint drills with Belarus will be pulled back.
The Russian-Belarusian exercises, dubbed Allied Resolve 2022, are being held at various training grounds in Belarus.
Kiev and the West have warned that the exercises may prompt a Russian "invasion" into Ukraine.
Moscow has denied the accusation, saying that Russia has the right to mobilize troops within its borders to defend its territory as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) activities constitute a threat to Russia's border security.
In January, Western countries such as the United States and Britain sent batches of weapons to Ukraine, while Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania also pledged military support for Kiev.
NATO said in January that Denmark, Spain, France and the Netherlands are sending or planning to send ships, planes or troops to NATO's deployments in Eastern Europe, adding that Britain, Canada and Germany are already present on the ground.
Earlier on Tuesday, Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, gave the green light to a bill recognizing the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk republics in east Ukraine's breakaway region of Donbas.
The bill will be sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his final approval.
In response, the Ukrainian parliament condemned Russia's move and urged the international community not to support it. It also called on international organizations to reaffirm the territorial integrity of Ukraine and its inviolability within internationally recognized borders.
Russia has long accused Kiev of refusing to comply with the Minsk peace agreements designed to end the conflict in Donbass. Ukraine said it stands ready to implement the deals but not on Moscow's conditions.
The Minsk agreements signed in September 2014 and February 2015 respectively envisage a ceasefire, a withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the contact line, a prisoner exchange and local elections, among other measures.
The Ukrainian government insists that security provisions of the deals should be priority, while Donbass insurgents and Russia demand Kiev perform political steps prescribed in the deal first, including holding local elections and offering special status to the region.
Amid the mounting tensions, former Ukrainian Presidents Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko issued a joint statement on Tuesday, calling on the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum to ease tensions.
"Today is the decisive moment to prove that the Budapest Memorandum was not a mere fraud," the statement said.
Under the Budapest Memorandum signed in December 1994, Ukraine received security guarantees from Washington, London and Moscow in exchange for Kiev signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and surrendering what was then the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal. ■
