KIEV: European leaders will meet Thursday to discuss ways to punish Russia for its absorption of Crimea, as Ukraine draws up plans to pull troops out of the flashpoint peninsula.
The EU faces tough decisions in finding a credible response to an explosive security crisis on its eastern frontier, with biting sanctions likely to hurt member states with strong economic links to Russia.
Kiev said it was looking to withdraw its embattled troops from Crimea after pro-Moscow forces seized naval bases and detained Ukraine's naval chief in a tightening of Russia's grip on the peninsula.
An ultimatum set by Ukraine's acting president Oleksandr Turchynov for Crimean authorities to release naval commander Sergiy Gayduk expired late Wednesday as the White House warned Russia it was "creating a dangerous situation".
Meanwhile Kiev announced it was dropping out of a key post-Soviet alliance and would slap entry visas on Russians in response to Moscow's absorption of the strategic Black Sea peninsula.
A defiant President Vladimir Putin brushed aside global indignation and Western sanctions on Tuesday to sign a treaty absorbing Crimea and expanding Russia's borders for the first time since World War II.
A Sunday referendum in Crimea, dismissed as illegal by Kiev and the West, showed nearly 97 percent supporting a shift from Ukrainian to Kremlin rule.
Putin employed the help of local militias to seize the mostly Russian-speaking peninsula -- a region the size of Belgium that is home to two million people as well as Russia's Black Sea Fleet -- after a tumultuous change in leadership in Kiev in February.
Three months of street revolts led to the ouster of pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych by pro-Europe leaders who spearheaded three months of deadly protests aimed at pulling Ukraine out of the Kremlin's orbit.
NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Russia's intervention in Crimea marked "the gravest threat to European security and stability since the end of the Cold War."
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