Mr Putin vanished soon after aides to one of his key allies were blamed for ordering the assassination of one of the Kremlin 's most outspoken critics , Boris Nemtsov . Vladimir Putin has admitted that he was ready to place his nuclear attack forces on alert when he seized Crimea a year ago . The Russian president 's revelation was aired in a pre-recorded TV interview broadcast at the end of last week . In the documentary – titled Crimea : Way Back Home – he claimed the area was Russia 's 'historic territory ' , even though under international law it remains Ukrainian . Putin went on to say : 'Russian people live there , they are in danger and we can not leave them . ' He also claimed that he feared they would have been overrun by ' a nationalist bulldozer ' from Kiev , and said he could not have left the area and the people who live there 'to whims of fate ' . However the president explained that he knew the West could have intervened , and had been 'ready ' to put his nuclear arsenal on alert , adding : ' I talked with colleagues and told them that Crimea is our historic territory . We were ready to do it . ' The Kremlin has since claimed it has the right to station nuclear weapons on the Crimean peninsula . Yesterday 's interview came a full ten days after Putin was last seen in public , amid rumours of illness , a coup , or his Olympic gymnast 'lover ' Alina Kabayeva giving birth to a child in Switzerland . He vanished soon after aides to one of his key allies were blamed for ordering the assassination of one of the Kremlin 's most outspoken critics , Boris Nemtsov . Scroll down for video . The crisis over his disappearance will deepen if he fails to appear this week at a number of events to commemorate the restoration of Crimea to Russia . Opposition TV channel Dozhd has claimed that the president has hidden himself away in one of his many luxurious official residences , a forest hideaway near Lake Valdai in the Novgorod region . But asked yesterday about whether his disappearance from public life was down to a bout of flu , Putin 's press secretary Dmitry Peskov would only say : 'No comment . The topic is closed . ' The crisis over his disappearance will deepen if he fails to appear this week at a number of events to commemorate the restoration of Crimea to Russia . Today the president is scheduled to meet Almazbek Atambayev , the president of Kyrgyzstan – after last week postponing a summit with the leaders of Kazakhstan and Belarus .
Mr Putin says he was ready to put Russia 's nuclear weapons on standby . Comment: Mr Putin says Russians in Crimea in danger before Russia annexed it .