Vladimir Putin held secret meeting to agree Crimea annexation weeks before referendum

Russia's president insisted that he had no intention of annexing Crimea - but a secret meeting with his 'war council', held over two weeks before the referendum, suggests otherwise

A week after the decision was taken, Mr Putin was still insisting publicly that Russia had no intention of annexing Crimea Photo: AFP/Getty Images

By Harriet Alexander, and Yekaterina Kravtsova in Moscow

8:33PM GMT 20 Mar 2014

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, took the decision to use military force to annex Crimea more than a fortnight before the question was put to the people living there.

Kremlin observers believe that Mr Putin convened a top secret meeting on the evening of Feb 25 or 26 – from which even his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was excluded – to map out his plans.

A day earlier, Mr Putin was in Sochi for the Winter Olympics closing ceremony. It is believed he then flew back to Moscow for the furtive reunion – which was not recorded in the Russian press.

At the meeting, according to The New York Times, the four men – Mr Putin, his chief of staff Sergei Ivanov, Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the security council, and Alexander Bortnikov, the director of the FSB, the modern-day successor to the KGB – agreed that Crimea would be brought back under Russian control.

At the meeting, according to The New York Times, the four men – Mr Putin; his chief of staff Sergei Ivanov; Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the security council; and Alexander Bortnikov, the director of the FSB, the modern-day successor to the KGB – agreed that Crimea would be put under Russian control.