Ukraine on Monday ordered its outnumbered troops to withdraw from Crimea following the peninsula’s lightning seizure and annexation by Russia in response to the fall in Kiev of a pro-Kremlin regime.
The dramatic but seemingly inevitable announcement came after the fall of another Ukrainian base in Crimea and as world leaders gathered in The Hague for a security summit dominated by concerns over the most explosive East-West standoff since the Cold War.
Ukraine’s acting President Oleksandr Turchynov sombrely told top lawmakers that both servicemen and their families would now be relocated to the mainland. “The National Security and Defence Council has reached a decision, under instructions from the Defence Ministry, to conduct a redeployment of military units stationed in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea,” Turchynov said in nationally televised remarks.
“The Cabinet of Ministers has instructions to resettle the families of soldiers as well as everyone else who today is forced to leave their homes under the pressure and aggression of the Russian Army’s occupying forces.”
Crimea’s pro-Kremlin deputy premier Rustam Temirgaliyev told Russia’s RIA Novosti state news agency that “all Ukrainian soldiers have either switched to the Russian side or are leaving the territory of the Crimea.”
Turchynov’s announcement came less than a month after Putin won authorisation to use force in response to the February 22 ouster of pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych regime by more nationalist leaders who are seeking a closer alliance with Europe.