Russia’s Narrowly Avoided a Terrorist Attack During Sochi - Putin Opens Up About Secret Story

- Vladimir Vladimirovich, we're in Sochi now, where the Winter Olympics of 2014 were hosted. This is where a Formula-1 track was built. Now Sochi has a festival. All this was your initiative. We haven't been used to such scope since the dull season. Is there some hidden meaning in all this?

Vladimir Putin: There is. We must set serious, grand, large-scale objectives for ourselves.

This story has never been told by anyone before. Sochi, February 7th, 2014. It's less than an hour before the opening of the Winter Olympics.

 

Vladimir Putin: "This is a very sensitive page in the Olympics' history. I haven't spoken about it for a reason".

There are over 40,000 people at the Fisht Olympic Stadium, athletes from 88 countries and the leaders of 48 states. The leaders of the International Olympics Committee and the President are about to appear.

Vladimir Putin: "Right before the Olympics' opening, we had a reception with the IOC reps. After the reception, we took the bus to the Fisht Olympic Stadium. When we were halfway there, my aide-de-camp gave me the phone. It was one of the directors of the field headquarters responsible for security during the Olympics. He reported that a plane, flying from Ukraine to Istanbul, had been hijacked. The hijackers demanded that the plane land in Sochi".

Alexander Bortnikov, Director of the FSB: "I made a decision to scramble the air force to control the plane's flight route. It was a matter of minute"s.

There was an SOS signal from a Boeing 737-800 operated by Turkey's Pegasus Airlines. It was traveling from Kharkiv to Istanbul. The pilots reported that one of the passengers had a bomb and that they're heading to Sochi. There were no reports of other demands by the terrorist. What could have happened? The field headquarters in Sochi knew from history.

Vladimir Putin: I asked them what they were suggesting, and the answer was predictable. "According to the plan of action in such situations.

- Meaning?

- Shoot it down.

There are 110 passengers onboard. But, if the terrorist's target were the Sochi Olympics, they would die along with thousands of other people.

Alexander Bortnikov: "In this situation, you have to make sacrifices".

Vladimir Putin: I told them to act according to the plan. On the bus, they asked me if everything was alright, I told them everything's fine. We eventually made it to the stadium and went in.

- And there were over 40,000 people in the stadium.

- That's right.

Maybe, due to a bad feeling, the IOC President, Thomas Bach, and his entourage asked if something was going on one more time. The answer was, "No, everything is alright."

Vladimir Putin: "Unfortunately, I couldn't tell them anything until I had the full picture. 5-7 minutes later, a second call came through. The same director of the field headquarters told me that it was a drunken prank. The plane was on its way to Turkey and was about to land".

The airliner traveled to Istanbul, where it was greeted by Turkish F-16s, just in case. The security headquarters in Sochi ordered the Air Force to stand down.

- What did you feel during that time, between the two calls?

- I think it'll be best if I don't talk about it.

Sochi, 2014