Russia's interest in Ukraine is for "short-term gain," and its troops remain massed along the Ukrainian border, US Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said in an interview that aired today.
Speaking on ABC's "This Week" Hagel qualified Russia as an "adversary in Ukraine," but stopped short of calling it an enemy.
"I think that is simplistic to get into either enemy, friend, partner, so on," he said in an interview taped yesterday.
"Russia continues to isolate itself for a short-term gain. They, the Russians, may feel that somehow they're winning. But the world is not about just short term," he said.
Hagel spoke as pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine held a vote on independence, amid fears the poll could spark civil war and lead to the break-up of the ex-Soviet republic.
In a surprise announcement last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he had pulled back his estimated 40,000 servicemen from the Ukrainian border, a move that is disputed by NATO and the West.
"They're not leaving as far as we can tell," Hagel said. "You would have to ask President Putin as to why he says they're leaving when, in fact, they are not."
Putin also has called for the rebel independence referendums to be pushed back and endorsed a planned presidential election in Ukraine.
But pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine carried on with today's vote, slammed by Kiev as a Kremlin-backed "criminal farce."
Western nations supporting Ukraine's government in its showdown with the pro-Moscow insurgents stressed the self-rule "referendums" for the provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk were illegal and would not be recognised.
