Ukraine orders troops withdrawal from Crimea

Ukraine today ordered the withdrawal of all its troops from Crimea, and the evacuation of their families, after Russian forces stormed a military base using stun grenades.

Russian soldiers also fired automatic weapons as they charged into the marine compound in the port city of Feodosia, a Ukrainian military official said.

Captured marines, with their hands tied, were reportedly seen being driven away in three Russian military trucks. Four helicopters are reported to have been deployed in the attack.

It came a week after Vladimir Putin signed a treaty to absorb Crimea into the Russian Federation, and ahead of a crisis summit between Barack Obama and other G7 leaders in the Hague today.

The US president was expected to urge European nations to be ready to impose tougher sanctions on Russia, including broader economic measures, even if they hit their own financial interests such as the City, defence contracts and energy supplies.

Present sanctions include asset freezes and travel bans on a few dozen leading figures.

Mr Obama told Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant: “If Russia continues to escalate the situation, we need to be prepared to impose a greater cost.”

Nato commanders fear Mr Putin is preparing to order troops into eastern Ukraine, and possibly also into the Trans-Dniester breakaway region of Moldova. Moscow has strongly denied any such moves.

US General Philip Breedlove, Nato’s supreme commander in Europe, stressed the Russian military force on Ukraine’s border was “very, very sizeable and very, very ready”. Former British army chief Lord Dannatt warned of a “resurgent Russia” and called for the UK to retain 3,000 soldiers in Germany rather than bring them home as part of wider military cuts.

In Kiev today, acting president Oleksander Turchinov told Parliament troops were being pulled out of Crimea in the face of “threats to the lives and health of our service personnel” and their families.

The withdrawal of Ukraine’s forces, which had numbered 18,000 late last week, is seen as an inevitable bowing to Russia’s vastly superior firepower.

Russian forces had already captured part of the Feodosia base, used by the 1st Separate Marine Battalion, Ukraine’s top military unit, earlier this month.