Putin says plan to take Crimea hatched before referendum

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Putin says plan to take Crimea hatched before referendum

MOSCOW Mon Mar 9, 2015 10:06am EDT

(Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he ordered officials to start work on taking control of Crimea weeks before a referendum which, the Kremlin has asserted until now, prompted the region's annexation from Ukraine.

Russian state television channel Rossiya-1 aired a brief extract of an interview in which Putin said he had called an emergency meeting in February last year to discuss the overthrow of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich hours earlier.

Yanukovich, a Russian ally, had fled to the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk after being forced out by anti-government protests.

"He would have been just annihilated... We got ready to get him out of Donetsk by land, by sea and by air," Putin said about his meeting in the Kremlin with commanders of special forces and defense ministry officials.

"This was on the night of Feb. 22 through to Feb. 23. We finished around 7 in the morning. And, while saying goodbye, I told all the colleagues: 'We have to start the work on Crimea's return into Russia'."

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/09/us-ukraine-crisis-putin-crimea-idUSKBN0M51DG20150309

[DetlefK]

1. Putin-apologists, come out, come out, wherever you are...

Your hero needs you and your carefully constructed explanations how it was really NATO who invaded Ukraine.

[ColesCountyDem]

2. Comrade Major Putin has no friends in this group?

Odd.

[bemildred]

3. All right, I said in February 2014 he was going to take it, and parts of E. Ukraine too.

If we continued to try to pull Ukraine into a hostile stance against Russia. This was not because I love Putin, but because I can read maps. So what am I supposed to want to say to an enraged nitwit who just noticed the situation now?