The hijackers stated no other conditions. According to FSB chief Aleksandr Bortnikov, also interviewed for the film, fighter jets were immediately scrambled, but the final decision was to be taken by Putin, RT news reported.
Putin asked the security official: “What do you suggest we do?”
“The answer was as expected: ‘Follow the plan. Shoot down the aircraft’. I said to them, ‘Then act in accordance with your plan’,” Putin told Kondrashov. Finally, a second call came.
“The same official. He tells me that this was drunken antics from the passengers. And that the plane would soon land in Istanbul as expected,” RT quoted Putin as saying in the documentary. When asked by his interviewer what he experienced between the two phone calls, Putin replied that “this is something I would prefer not to talk about”.
In the documentary, Putin also said that returning Crimea to Ukraine was impossible under whatever circumstances, reports TASS news agency. “What are you talking about? Such circumstances do not exist and never will,” he asserted.
