Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed for the first time that he had ordered the annexation of Crimea weeks before the referendum on self-determination was passed.
In a documentary trailer shown on Sunday and scheduled to air on Russia's state television channel Rossiya-1, Putin admits that on Feb. 22 he told his colleagues to "start the work" to return Crimea to Russia, the BBC reported.
The meeting was called to discuss how to rescue Ukraine's ousted president, Viktor Yanukovych, who had been deposed following months of pro-European protests held in the capital, resulting in him fleeing Donsetsk.
"I invited the leaders of our special services and the defence ministry to the Kremlin and set them the task of saving the life of the president of Ukraine [Viktor Yanukovych], who would simply have been liquidated," he said, reported The Associated Press. "We finished about seven in the morning. When we were parting, I told all my colleagues, 'We are forced to begin the work to bring Crimea back into Russia.'"
Putin said they "got ready to get [Yanukovych] right out of Donetsk by land, by sea or by air. Heavy machine-guns were mounted there so that there wouldn't be much discussion about it."
Four days after that meeting, unidentified armed men appeared in Crimea, took hold of the local government building and raised the Russian flag. On March 16, Crimeans voted to pass a referendum for Crimea to be reabsorbed back into Russia.
Putin previously insisted that Russia didn't send troops into Crimea, though he later revealed that Russian troops had indeed been sent in to help with the transition. Yanukovych was safely brought to Russian territories by late February.
Rossiya-1 did not specify when the full length film would be released.
