Vladimir Putin says Russia was preparing to use nuclear weapons 'if necessary' and blames US for Ukraine crisis in Crimea documentary

Vladimir Putin has said Russia was so fearful of attack at the height of the Ukraine crisis that it was preparing to arm its nuclear weapons, in extraordinary claims aired on state TV on Sunday night.

Amid ongoing Russian media speculation that the President was watching the Crimea documentary from his sickbed, Mr Putin’s full interview with Rossiya One provided new insight into his country’s involvement in the annexation of the Black Sea peninsula.

In the documentary, which marks a year since the referendum that saw Russia take control of Crimea, Mr Putin described the Ukrainian revolution to oust Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 as an armed coup “masterminded by our American friends”.

He said Washington tried to “trick” the world into thinking the regime change was “supported mostly by the Europeans”, according to a translation of the interview on Russia Today.

But he instead accused the US of orchestrating the crisis, saying: “They helped training the nationalists, their armed groups, in Western Ukraine, in Poland and to some extent in Lithuania. They facilitated the armed coup.”

Mr Putin expanded on comments aired ahead of the full documentary that well-armed forces known as the “little green men” who helped bring about the referendum in Crimea were indeed Russian soldiers.

He also revealed that as part of the operation to take control of the peninsula, Russia deployed K-300P Bastion coastal defence missile “in a way that made them seen clearly from space” as a military deterrent to the perceived threat of attack from the West.

And on Russia’s willingness to arm nuclear weapons if necessary, Mr Putin said: “We were ready to do this ... (Crimea) is our historical territory. Russian people live there. They were in danger. We cannot abandon them.”

The documentary comes as speculation continues to grow about Mr Putin's 10-day absence from public view. After a number of cancelled meetings in the past week, the opposition TV station Dozhd reportedly cited anonymous sources on Sunday saying the leader was recuperating from the flu in one of his country manors outside Moscow.

On Monday, he is scheduled to take part in a meeting with the president of Kyrgyzstan, in what would be his first public appearance before the news media since 5 March.

Other admissions made by Mr Putin in the documentary, which was entitled “Crimea: The Road Back Home”, were that he ordered the defence ministry to deploy elite units to Crimea “under the cover of strengthening the protection of our military facilities”.

But despite admitting this subterfuge, Mr Putin said Russian troop numbers in the peninsula never exceeded the 20,000 allowed under the terms of basing its Black Sea fleet there.

The comments were reported on the state broadcaster’s website, after the documentary aired in the Russian Far East but before it was due to go out in Moscow.

Mr Putin also confirmed that Russian forces oversaw the movement of the ousted president Yanukovych from Kiev to Russia, and suggested that those who benefited from the “armed coup” had plotted to assassinate him.

“I invited the heads of our special services, the Defense Ministry and ordered them to protect the life of the Ukrainian president,” he said. “Otherwise he would have been killed.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vladimir-putin-says-russia-was-preparing-to-use-nuclear-weapons-if-necessary-and-blames-us-for-ukraine-crisis-in-crimea-documentary-10109615.html

Interesting, the stories from both sides don't add up, because the Ukrainians were shelling their own people in Mariupol for instance and Donetsk.

Yes, you get the feeling his is letting you know only what is necessary to manipulate the listener.

The mind-management is still going on.

I don't think he is the only one manipulating and playing mind games Quill.

Nor do I. The problem is that the US is locked into a race war right now, and is not so open a society. Putin has the tool of a public voice; Obama does not have that.

Yea, but Obama has the CIA lol

Obama has been locked out of the CIA, just as he has been locked out of Congress. There is a race war going on in the US today.

I get the feeling Obama still has the NSA, but it has no arms or legs.

Oh come on Quill, you really think Obama has nothing to do with what the CIA get up to?   I think he is doing his best in some things, but USA foreign policy is not, and has never been, benign.

risingsun wrote:Oh come on Quill, you really think Obama has nothing to do with what the CIA get up to?   I think he is doing his best in some things, but USA foreign policy is not, and has never been, benign.

Some presidents are told all the secrets.  Some presidents are not, and those around him or her say they are just limiting him on a need to know basis.  It depends on who is around, and who do you trust.  The US government is so huge, that it cannot be viewed as a monolith.

We are in the midst of a fissure in American politics that is at least as significant as the Civil War, which ended in 1865.  It's really the same players, only the Republicans have reincarnated themselves into southern racists, via the southern strategy.  But the issue is the same: racism.

If racism in America is that significant, do you think a black president is going to get full cooperation?  No, I don't think the Obama has any influence over the CIA.

The cia, along with others just pay lip service to Obama.

Precisely. The Republican Congress, through the consent-power of the Senate, controls certain agencies, the CIA among them.

Why would a liberal Democrat ever appoint David Petraeus as Director of the CIA? He was the architect of the needless prolonging of the Iraq war...known as the surge.