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Ukraine Plans to Withdraw Troops From Russia-Occupied Crimea

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In an admission of defeat, Ukraine’s leaders began plans for a military pullback after the Russian takeover.CreditCredit...Uriel Sinai for The New York Times

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 on 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 bases and other installations here for more than two weeks, surrounded by heavily armed Russian 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 a surrender of Crimea, at least from a military standpoint.

It came hours after militiamen, backed by Russian forces, seized the headquarters of the Ukrainian Navy in Sevastopol and detained its commander, in what appeared to be the start of a concerted effort to oust the Ukrainian armed forces from outposts throughout the peninsula.

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.

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Ukrainian air defense forces on Wednesday moved their belongings out of dormitories near a blockaded military base in the village of Lubimovka, Crimea.Credit...Uriel Sinai for The New York Times

In Kiev, the provisional government also said that it would quit the Commonwealth of Independence States, the group of former Soviet republics, and that it was considering imposing visa requirements on Russian citizens — a step that would potentially create huge inconveniences for Ukrainians as well, in the likely event that Russia reciprocated.

Russia did not flinch. Outside Moscow, President Vladimir V. Putin opened a meeting of senior government ministers by demanding updates on the transportation and infrastructure in Crimea. Mr. Putin ordered that the government move swiftly to begin construction of a bridge that would provide an overland link for cars and trains directly between Crimea and Russia. At present, no such link exists.

The takeover of the base proceeded as anger intensified in the West over Russia’s move to annex Crimea, with calls for Russia’s expulsion from important international bodies like the G-8 grouping of leading economic powers. At the same time, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. continued his effort to reassure American 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 travel to Moscow and Kiev on Thursday and Friday for meetings with leaders, including Mr. Putin, whose moves to reclaim Crimea have set off the biggest crisis in East-West relations since the Soviet Union’s demise two decades ago.

Mr. 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 proposed a resolution on Saturday declaring the referendum illegal, but Russia, acting alone, vetoed that measure.

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Ukrainian and Russian officials spoke in Sevastopol after militiamen, backed by Russian forces, seized the headquarters of the Ukrainian Navy and raised a Russian flag.CreditCredit...Viktor Drachev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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 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.

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Russian flags waved from a watch tower after Russian forces seized the Ukrainian naval headquarters in Sevastopol.Credit...Uriel Sinai for The New York Times

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.

Andrew Yankov, a member of a local self-defense group, described the takeover as “a big victory.”

“We stood here for weeks, and now we’re finally successful,” Mr. 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, like other military installations across Crimea, had been surrounded since shortly after Russian forces occupied the region at the beginning of March. Several Ukrainian officers and soldiers said that they felt abandoned by the government in Kiev, which has been virtually powerless to help them, but also had given no hint of yielding until the evacuation announcement on Wednesday evening.

Governments continued to scramble for a response to the Kremlin’s audacious actions. In an interview with a San Diego television station, President Obama said the United States would continue to apply diplomatic pressure to Russia, but ruled out the use of American military forces, Reuters reported.

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Pro-Russia militia members on Wednesday forced their way through an entrance to the Ukrainian naval headquarters in Sevastopol, Crimea. They later raised the Russian flag in the square nearby.Credit...Andrew Lubimov/Associated Press

“There is a better path,” he said, “but I think even the Ukrainians would acknowledge that for us to engage Russia militarily would not be appropriate and would not be good for Ukraine either.”

Speaking in Britain’s Parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister David Cameron said the world’s leading industrialized countries should consider ejecting Russia from the G-8. The United States, Britain and their allies in the older G-7 body will meet in The Hague next week to debate further measures.

Before the crisis in Crimea, Mr. Putin was scheduled to host a gathering of the G-8 countries in June in Sochi, where the Winter Olympics were held, but Western countries have suspended their participation. “If we turn away from this crisis and don’t act,” Mr. Cameron said, “we will pay a very high price in the longer term.”

On Thursday, leaders of the 28-nation European Union are scheduled to discuss a response over Crimea.

Germany’s government has expressed 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 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 Ms. Merkel’s weekly cabinet meeting, said that 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 Mr. Putin’s appeal on Tuesday to the German people to support what he depicted as Russian reunification, just as Russia supported German reunification in 1990.

German reunification brought together two German states, Mr. Seibert said, while “Russia’s intervention, by contrast, is leading to a division of Ukraine.”

David M. Herszenhorn reported from Sevastopol, and Andrew E. Kramer from Kiev, Ukraine. Reporting was contributed by Mark Landler from Vilnius, Lithuania; Alison Smale from Berlin; Rick Gladstone from New York; Somini Sengupta from the United Nations; Alan Cowell from London; Noah Sneider from Sevastopol; and Patrick Reevell from Simferopol, Crimea.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 14 of the New York edition with the headline: Ukraine Plans to Withdraw Troops From Russia-Occupied Crimea. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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