Russian president Vladimir Putin recently admitted the plans regarding his country's action towards Crimea. Mr. Putin said in an interview that the plan to annex Crimea back to Russia was ordered several days before the referendum on self-determination was issued.
The Crimea was formally annexed into Russia on March 18, 2014. The act was condemned by many international states after a group of unidentified armed men took over the peninsula.
On the interview, Mr. Putin said that the plan to return Crimea back to Russian control was discussed in an all-night meeting held on Feb. 22, 2014. This was contrary to the previous statement made by Mr. Putin saying that the decision to take back Crimea stemmed from a secret and undated poll that showed 80 percent of Crimean's wants the region to back on Russian control. Additionally, the all-night meeting was called just hours after Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted from his office.
Mr. Putin's interview will be released as part of the documentary entitled "The Path To The Motherland." On the interview Mr. Putin said, "I invited the leaders of our special services and the defense ministry to the Kremlin and set them the task of saving the life of the president of Ukraine, who would simply have been liquidated."
Yanukovych left his office on Feb. 22, 2014 after a series of violent protests and on Feb. 27, 2014, a group of heavily armed gunmen, dubbed "little green men," seized Crimea's parliament and several other key structures. These soldiers who were not wearing any military insignia on them raised the Russian flag on several government buildings in Crimea, according to BBC.
The documentary was made by Andrei Kondrashov who works at the state-run broadcast channel Rossiya-1. No exact date has been provided for the official release of the documentary, according to Belfast Telegraph.