European stocks made cautious gains on Wednesday on hopes of a de-escalation of tensions between Russia and Ukraine, although accelerating inflation kept a lid on Britain's blue-chip index.
The continent-wide TOXX 600 index . rose 0.2% by 0810 GMT, adding to the 1.4% jump in the previous session when Moscow indicated it was returning some troops near Ukraine border to base in an apparent de-escalation.
However, concerns lingered as Kyiv appeared to blame Russia for a cyber attack and U.S. President Joe Biden said the country had not verified the move on troop returning.
UK's FTSE 100 was flat after data showed consumer prices rose at the fastest annual pace in nearly 30 years in January, boosting bets that the Bank of England will raise interest rates for a third meeting in a row.
Battered travel & leisure stocks were the top gainers in Europe, up 1.1%.
Among individual stocks, tobacco group Swedish Match gained 4.4% after proposing a hike to its annual dividend, while French industrial gases company Air Liquide climbed 2.9% as it forecast a bigger profit for 2022.
Ericsson ERICb.ST tumbled 7.1% after it said an internal investigation in 2019 found serious breaches of its compliance rules in Iraq.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
