Ukraine makes plans for military pullout from Crimea

Sevastopol, Crimea: Bowing to the reality of the Russian military occupation of Crimea a day after Russia announced it was annexing the disputed peninsula, the Ukrainian government said Wednesday that it had drawn up plans to evacuate all of its military personnel and their families and was prepared to relocate as many as 25,000 of them to mainland Ukraine.

Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and sailors have been trapped on military bases and other installations here for more than two weeks, surrounded by heavily armed Russian military forces and loosely organized local militia.

While the provisional government in Kiev has insisted that Russia's annexation of Crimea is illegal and has appealed to international supporters for help, the evacuation announcement by the head of the national security council, Andriy Parubiy, effectively amounted to an unconditional surrender of Crimea.

It came hours after militiamen backed by Russian forces, seized the headquarters of the Ukrainian navy in Sevastopol and detained its commander.

Officers of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which is also headquartered here, later entered the base through its main gates as Ukrainian military personnel streamed out carrying clothing and other personal belongings.

The takeover proceeded as anger intensified in the West over Russia's move to annex Crimea, with calls for Russia's expulsion from important international bodies such as the G-8 grouping of leading economic powers. At the same time, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden continued his effort to reassure U.S. allies in the Baltic region, once part of the Soviet Union, that the United States would protect them from any aggression by Russia.

The United Nations said Wednesday that Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general, would fly to Moscow and Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, on Thursday and Friday for meetings with leaders, including President Vladimir Putin of Russia, whose moves to reclaim Crimea have set off the biggest crisis in East-West relations since the Soviet Union's demise two decades ago.

Ban has expressed disappointment over the Kremlin-backed weekend referendum in Crimea that created the basis for Russia's annexation, but he has said nothing about whether he considers the Russian step to be illegal. The United States and other Western members of the Security Council, which was meeting later Thursday, proposed a resolution last Saturday declaring the referendum illegal but Russia vetoed that measure.

At the Ukrainian naval headquarters here, soldiers with machine guns, wearing green camouflage but still no identifying insignia, were deployed in and around the base. A large military truck parked just outside the base bore the black-and-white license plates of the Russian forces.

Although the gates were forced open during the initial storming of the base, there were no reports of shooting or injuries. And while there was no indication that the Ukrainian government was prepared to issue a formal surrender in Crimea, capitulation by military units surrounded throughout the peninsula seemed increasingly inevitable.

When asked why they did not return fire, one Ukrainian soldier leaving the base here said, "We had no order and no weapons." Another said, "We met them empty-handed."

On Tuesday evening, after reports that a shooting at another military installation, not far from the Crimean capital of Simferopol, had left at least one Ukrainian soldier dead, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry in Kiev issued a statement saying its troops had been authorized to use force to defend themselves.

At the base here in Sevastopol, however, the troops seemed to feel less of a threat of deadly harm, than the resolute sense of facing eviction at gunpoint.

Andrew Yankov, a member of a local self-defense group who was present during the takeover, described the action as "a big victory."

"We stood here for weeks and now we're finally successful," Yankov said. "It's also freedom for the guys inside. We took responsibility. They're happy because they're tired. They want to go home."

At a far side of the base, local militia units appeared to be looting some equipment, removing a refrigerator through one gate, and throwing bags over the walls, which were then loaded onto a truck.

The base, likes other military installations across Crimea, has been surrounded since shortly after Russian forces occupied the region at the beginning of March.

The local militiamen have been guarding the perimeter of the base along with professional soldiers who have no identifying badges but whose equipment and organization leave little doubt they are Russian military personnel. The militiamen entered the base around 8 a.m. and an hour or so later hoisted a Russian flag on the main flagpole.

The seizure came a day after Putin reclaimed Crimea as a part of Russia, reversing what he described as a historical injustice made by the Soviet Union 60 years ago and brushing aside international condemnation that could leave Russia shunned internationally.

The United States and Western allies have begun imposing economic sanctions to punish Russia for the incursion into Crimea, but it is not clear that they are prepared for any action that would prevent the Russian annexation from moving forward.

On Wednesday, there were reports from several bases that Russian forces and local militias were gathering in anticipation of seizing control, in Novoozornoe, on a lake not far from the city of Yevpatoria on the western coast of Crimea.

Russia's annexation of Crimea drew broad Western protest Tuesday as governments scrambled to find a response to the Kremlin's audacious moves, which have unfolded with remarkable haste since the stealthy takeover of the strategic peninsula began.

Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said the world's leading industrialized countries should consider expelling Russia permanently from the G-8 grouping. The United States, Britain and their allies in the older G-7 body are meeting in The Hague next week to debate further measures against Russia, which will not be present at the gathering.

"I think it's important that we move together with our allies and partners and I think we should be discussing whether or not to expel Russia permanently from the G-8 if further steps are taken," Cameron told Parliament, echoing a similar call several weeks ago by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. "That's the meeting we'll have on Monday and I think that's the right way to proceed."

Before the crisis in Crimea, Putin was scheduled to host a gathering of the G-8 countries in June in Sochi, Russia, where the Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games were held, but Western countries have suspended their participation.

On Thursday, leaders of the 28-nation European Union are scheduled to discuss a response to Russia's moves.

"If we turn away from this crisis and don't act," Cameron said, "we will pay a very high price in the longer term."

Germany's government, by contrast, has expressed more caution, reflecting its deep intertwined economic relations with Russia. Although Chancellor Angela Merkel took a tough tone with Moscow in public last week, business executives in Germany are reluctant to jeopardize trade ties, and diplomats and officials steeped in decades of conciliation with Russia are hesitant to sever avenues for negotiation. High-level talks scheduled for April have not been canceled.

Nonetheless, the German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, speaking Wednesday after Merkel's weekly Cabinet meeting, said Russia was "pursuing a path of international isolation, and it is a path containing great dangers for the coexistence of states in Europe."

He also gave the first official response to Putin's appeal Tuesday to ordinary Germans to support what he depicted as Russian reunification, just as Russia had supported German reunification in 1990.

German reunification had brought together two German states, Seibert said, while "Russia's intervention by contrast is leading to a division of Ukraine."