Headlines
Putin admits to ordering Crimea's annexation before referendum
Moscow, March 9
Russian President Vladimir
Putin admitted that he ordered the annexation of Crimea hours after the
ouster of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, and a week before the
regional authorities of the peninsula rebelled against the government in
Kiev calling for an independence referendum, Efe news agency reported.
State-owned
Russia TV released late Sunday the trailer of a documentary film
scheduled to be broadcast in the coming days in which Putin will
disclose the details of Crimea's annexation and the special operation to
take out the former Ukrainian president from his hometown of Donetsk,
where he took refuge upon fleeing Kiev in the early hours of February
22.
"Heavy machine guns were installed there to act without
further parley. We got ready to pick him up directly from Donetsk: by
land, by sea and by air. It was the night of (February) 22 to (February)
23, we finished at about seven o'clock in the morning. And when
parting, I told all my colleagues: 'We'll have to start working on
bringing Crimea back to Russia'," Putin says in the trailer.
Although
Putin had already revealed the participation of Russian troops in
Crimea's incorporation, he had always claimed that the intervention was
made to ensure the reunification referendum process, organised by
pro-Russian authorities in the peninsula on March 1.
"We did use
our armed forces, but only to give the people living here the
opportunity to express their views regarding their future," Putin said
in the Crimean city of Yalta last August.
Moreover, the Russian
president consistently argued that Crimea has always been Russian
territory but was unfairly transferred to Ukraine in 1954, when both
were part of the Soviet Union.
On March 16, 2014, Crimea held an
independence referendum, unrecognised by the authorities in Kiev and the
international community, in which approximately 97 percent of those who
voted were in favour of Crimea acceding to Russia.
Two days
later, Russia annexed the Ukrainian territory in a ceremony at the
Kremlin, where Putin and the leaders of the region signed a bilateral
treaty, declaring the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sebastopol as
members of the Russian Federation.