Crimea raised nuclear alert: Putin
‘We cannot abandon’ Russians in area wrested from Ukraine, he says
Russia was ready to bring its nuclear weapons into a state of alert during last year’s tensions over the Crimean Peninsula and the overthrow of Ukraine’s president, President Vladimir Putin said in remarks aired on Sunday.
Putin also expanded on a previous admission that the well-armed forces in unmarked uniforms who took control of Ukrainian military facilities in Crimea were Russian soldiers. Putin’s comments, in a documentary shown on state TV, highlight the extent to which alarm spread in Russia in the weeks following Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster in February 2014 after months of street protests that turned increasingly violent.
After Yanukovych fled Kyiv, eventually surfacing in Russia, separatist sentiment soared in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula dominated by ethnic Russians.
Russian forces took control of Ukrainian military facilities on the peninsula and a referendum on secession was hastily called. The referendum, which was widely denounced in the West as illegitimate, reportedly brought overwhelming support for secession. Russia annexed Crimea on March 19, 2014.
In the documentary Putin says of the nuclear preparedness, “We were ready to do this … (Crimea) is our historical territory. Russian people live there. They were in danger. We cannot abandon them.” The comments were reported on the state broadcaster’s website after its transmission in the Russian Far East and before it appeared on the air in Moscow.
The documentary comes as speculation swirls about Putin’s 10-day absence from public view. On Monday, he is expected to meet with the president of Kyrgyzstan, which would be his first appearance before journalists since March 5.
Speculation about the whereabouts of Putin are swirling with theories of bloody Kremlin coups, secret births or sudden deaths.
But Sunday, the reality appeared as if it might be a little more prosaic: maybe the Russian president was just in bed with a bad cold.
The opposition television station Dozhd reported Putin had come down with the flu and was recuperating at one of his country residences outside Moscow, citing anonymous sources.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, refused to comment on the Dozhd’s reports about Putin’s alleged rural recuperation, but did say he would be tuning in to watch the documentary, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
Unnamed Kazakh officials were quoted as saying Putin had cancelled a trip to Kazakhstan because he was unwell. The Kremlin has denied there is anything amiss. Reports Putin was in Switzerland to attend the birth of his child with Alina Kabaeva, his alleged girlfriend, have also been denied.
The assassination of the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov last month, which the Kremlin said was a “provocation” designed to undermine political stability, has fuelled a climate of fear in Moscow, where rumours have flourished.
Reports of the fall from grace of Igor Sechin, head of the oil giant Rosneft and a long-standing Putin ally, have increased the conviction of many that there is a bitter power struggle going on.
Geydar Dzhemal, the chairman of the pro-Kremlin national Islamic Committee, even claimed on Georgian television that Putin had been “neutralized” — though still alive — by the FSB, Russia’s security service.