Putin says he told officials of Crimea decision in February 2014:
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he told senior security officials of his decision to take Crimea just hours after embattled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned power.
In a trailer for a documentary to be aired on state television, Putin described an emergency Kremlin meeting he said ended about 7 a.m. on February 23, 2014.
Putin said he ordered the military and security agencies to "to save the Ukrainian president's life."
"As we were parting, I told all my colleagues: We will have to start work to return Crimea to Russia," Putin said in the trailer shown on March 8.
Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 after deploying troops to the region, engineering the takeover of the regional parliament, and staging a referendum denounced by Kyiv and the West as illegitimate.
The Kremlin originally denied that it had sent troops into Crimea, but Putin later said on television that Russian troops had been sent in.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
More on the Obama-Tusk meeting later today:
Ahead of his meeting with Obama, Tusk said in an interview with The New York Times on March 8 that Europe was not yet prepared to step up sanctions against Moscow despite provocations by what he called the Russian "aggressor."