Putin emerged from the shadows after a ten day absence today and told reporters Russia was ready to use nuclear weapons to secure Crimea.
Zero Hedge reported:
Having re-emerged from his hibernation, Vladimir Putin is wasting no time getting back to business. Having paced 40,000 troops on “snap-readiness,” AP reports that a documentary which aired last night shows Putin explaining that 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, and admitted well-armed forces in unmarked uniforms who took control of Ukrainian military facilities in Crimea were Russian soldiers. In the documentary, which marks a year since the referendum, 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.”
As AP reports,
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 being 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.
