![\"\"](\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Sochi-winter-olympics.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRussia’s President Putin ordered the shooting down of a passenger plane that was reportedly carrying a bomb and targeting the opening of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, he says in a new film.<\/p>\n
In the two-hour film, posted online, Mr Putin says he was told a plane from Ukraine to Turkey had been hijacked as the Games were about to start.<\/p>\n
It was found to be a false alarm, he says. The plane was not shot down.<\/p>\n
The film comes ahead of an election he is expected to win on 18 March.<\/p>\n
Mr Putin faces seven challengers but none are expected to attract widespread support and the most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, has been barred from standing.<\/p>\n
“I was told: a plane en route from Ukraine to Istanbul was seized, captors demand landing in Sochi,” Mr Putin says in the film, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n
The pilots of a Turkish Pegasus Airlines Boeing 737-800, flying from Kharkiv to Istanbul with 110 people on board, said a passenger had a bomb and had told them to divert the plane to Sochi, reporter Andrey Kondrashov says.<\/p>\n
In the film, Mr Putin says security officials told him that the emergency procedure in such a situation was to down the plane.<\/p>\n
“I told them: act according to the plan,” Mr Putin says.<\/p>\n
Minutes later he received another call informing him that it was a false alarm, he says.<\/p>\n
He arrived at the Olympic venue in Sochi with Olympic officials shortly afterwards, he says.<\/p>\n
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has confirmed Mr Putin’s account, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n
The first part of the documentary, entitled Putin, has been posted on social media accounts, including one belonging to key state media manager and commentator Dmitry Kiselyov, and a pro-Kremlin YouTube account.<\/p>\n
Incredulity at Crimea question<\/strong><\/p>\n During the film Mr Putin was asked by interviewer Mr Kondrashov – a top state TV presenter and currently Mr Putin’s election campaign press secretary – if there were any circumstances in which he could envisage returning Crimea to Ukraine.<\/p>\n “What are you talking about? Such circumstances do not exist and never will,” Mr Putin said.\u00a0Russia’s Tass news agency reported his remarks.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine after the country’s pro-Russian leader was overthrown in 2014.<\/p>\n Last September\u00a0the UN accused Russia of committing “grave human rights violations”\u00a0in Crimea.<\/p>\n Betrayal ‘unforgivable’<\/strong><\/p>\n In the film, Mr Putin says that he may forgive some things, “but not everything”.<\/p>\n When asked by Mr Kondrashov to clarify what cannot be forgiven, the Russian leader says: “Betrayal.”<\/p>\n However, Mr Putin says he has not yet had to deal with “serious events that can be called betrayal”.<\/p>\n “Maybe I have chosen people who are not capable of doing such a thing,” he says.<\/p>\n Grandfather ‘cooked for Stalin’<\/strong><\/p>\n The Russian president’s paternal grandfather worked as a chef for the former leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, Mr Putin says.<\/p>\n Spiridon Putin was a highly regarded member of Stalin’s staff, Mr Putin says.<\/p>\n “[He] was a cook at Lenin’s and later at Stalin’s, at one of the dachas in the Moscow area,” Mr Putin says, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n Spiridon Putin continued to cook for the Soviet establishment until not long before his death in 1965 at the age of 86, the film says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Russia’s President Putin ordered the shooting down of a passenger plane that was reportedly carrying a bomb and targeting the opening of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, he says in a new film. In the two-hour film, posted online, Mr Putin says he was told a plane from Ukraine to Turkey had been hijacked as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[16527,7224,17798,1686],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/ADA2\/production\/_98005444_gettyimages-479693233.jpg\")
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