Putin Says Russia Was Ready to Activate Nuclear Arsenal Over Crimea

Well, that's one hella reentry after being missing for week.

At LAT, "In film, Putin justifies Russia's seizure of Crimea last year":

Russia was prepared to activate its nuclear arsenal a year ago when its troops secured the Crimean peninsula and eventually annexed it to the Russian Federation, President Vladimir Putin said in a broadcast aired Sunday.

In the documentary-cum-reenactment timed to Monday's anniversary of a referendum in which Crimeans voted to secede from Ukraine, the film, “Crimea: Path to the Motherland,” features Putin justifying Moscow's seizure of the Black Sea territory as necessary to protect Russians and military bases from what he described as a nationalist junta that had taken power in Kiev.

Putin accused the United States of masterminding the three-month uprising in the Ukrainian capital that ended with the ouster of Kremlin-allied President Viktor Yanukovich, who has since taken refuge in Russia. He said the “beneficiaries of the armed coup” planned to kill Yanukovich, prompting Putin to personally order Russian military intervention to protect the political ally and save Crimea from attack by Ukrainian nationalists.

Although the documentary was clearly prerecorded, it served to project a vibrant and defiant image of the Russian president, who hasn't been seen in public for more than a week, spurring rumors that he is sick or has been deposed in a palace coup.

The Kremlin website on Sunday also carried a message of condolence from Putin on the death of Russian writer Valentin Rasputin, adding to the impression that he is on top of state affairs.

The documentary covered the year since the March 16, 2014, referendum in which 97% of voters among Crimea's 2 million residents were said to have supported secession. Two days later, Putin issued a decree annexing the peninsula, which is home to Russia's Black Sea fleet and Soviet-era air bases.

The film was a montage of images of Russian paratroopers coming to the rescue of Crimeans, Putin’s observations on his obligation to protect Russians outside his country and reenacted clashes between Ukrainian nationalists and the police and security forces defeated by the popular uprising in Kiev.

Masked Ukrainian zealots were depicted in the reenacted segments hunting Russians with attack dogs and barbed-wire-wrapped truncheons. Fiery scenes of torched police vehicles and black-clad rightists attacking law enforcement cast the overthrow of Yanukovich as a violent, Western-inspired coup d’etat, and the Russian minority in Crimea and eastern Ukraine as the targets of fascist death squads.

The United States, along with Poland and Lithuania, “facilitated the armed coup” by training the nationalists, Putin said...

More.

And at NPR, "Kremlin Says Putin Is Fine, Just Fine."