Described a secret meeting when plans were made to take back

Russian President Vladimir Putin has described a secret meeting with officials last year when Russia decided it would take Crimea — the Black Sea region that Moscow annexed from Ukraine last March.

In a trailer for an upcoming documentary, shown on state-owned television late Sunday, Putin said that he met with security officials in February to make plans for saving Ukraine's then-President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled power after months of pro-European protests in the Ukrainian capital.

'We got ready to get him right out of Donetsk by land, by sea or by air,' he said. 'Heavy machine guns were mounted there so that there wouldn't be much discussion about it.'

Scroll down for video

Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has described a secret meeting with officials last year when Russia decided it would take Crimea

Putin said that after the meeting he told the security chiefs that they would be 'obliged to start working to return Crimea to Russia.'

The minute-long trailer was overlaid with dramatic music and sweeping shots of the Crimean coast. The channel, Rossiya-1, did not specify when the full film would be released.

The Kremlin originally denied that it had sent troops into Crimea, though Putin later announced on state television that Russian troops had been sent in. Yanukovych was safely on Russian soil by late February, when Russia's military was establishing its presence in Crimea.

Putin said that he met with security officials in February to make plans for saving Ukraine's then-President Viktor Yanukovych, pictured

The virtually bloodless seizure of Crimea - a Black Sea peninsula with an ethnic Russian majority and where Moscow has a naval base - was followed by a pro-Moscow insurgency in the east of Ukraine.

About 6,000 people have been killed in the fighting in eastern Ukraine. A fragile ceasefire, greed last month in Minsk, has largely held so far.

Western governments have condemned Russia's intervention in Crimea as illegal, with the European Union and United States imposing sanctions on Moscow.

Ukrainian soldiers stand on top of an armoured personnel carrier in Berdianske. Western governments have condemned Russia's intervention in Crimea as illegal

About 6,000 people have been killed in the fighting in eastern Ukraine. A fragile ceasefire, greed last month in Minsk, has largely held so far

Russian soldiers who took part have been given state medals with the citation 'For returning Crimea', which give the starting date of the operation as February 20, before Yanukovich was ousted.

Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper often critical of Putin, published details last month of what it said was a document presented to the presidential administration some time between February 4 and 12 last year.