“What, have you gone mad?” he told a journalist who asked him if there were any circumstances under which the Russian leader would give up Crimea.
“There are no such circumstances and never will be,” he said in the new two-hour documentary Putin.
It was published on the social media accounts of notorious pro-Kremlin TV host Dmitry Kiselev ahead of a presidential election on March 18.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and supported Russian-speaking insurgents in the east of the former Soviet country after a Western-backed popular uprising ousted a Kremlin-backed regime from power.
The peninsula’s annexation led to European and US sanctions against Moscow amid the most serious crisis in ties with the West since the end of the Cold War.
The documentary – produced by journalist Andrei Kondrashov, who is a spokesman for Putin’s campaign – features interviews with a number of the Russian leader’s allies including former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and childhood friend cellist Sergei Roldugin.
The secretive chief executive of oil giant Rosneft, Igor Sechin, said that he had served under Putin in various capacities for nearly 30 years and that the president was “a very careful person”.
“Honestly speaking, I don’t know a single mistake he has made over these years,” Sechin said in rare public comments. “He is very careful at making decisions.”
Speaking on everything from his family to childhood to love and happiness, Putin said that he is capable of forgiving.
“But not everything,” he quickly added, noting he could not forgive a betrayal.
“Generally speaking, I cannot complain that I’ve come across any serious events that could be called a betrayal,” Putin said.
Running against a motley crew of seven challengers, Putin is expected to take nearly 70% of the vote with a turnout of more than 60%, according to state-run pollsters.
In the documentary, Putin also revealed that in 2014 he ordered a passenger aircraft which was reported to be carrying a bomb and targeting the opening of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi to be downed.
The president told Kondrashov that he received a telephone call from security officers responsible for the Sochi Olympics on February 7, 2014, shortly before the opening ceremony was due to start.
“I was told: a plane en route from Ukraine to Istanbul was seized, captors demand landing in Sochi,” Putin said in the film seen by Reuters.
The pilots of a Turkish Pegasus Airlines Boeing 737-800 flying from Kharkiv to Istanbul reported that one of the passengers had a bomb and the plane had to change course to Sochi, Kondrashov said in the film.
There were 110 passengers onboard, while more than 40,000 people had gathered at the stadium to watch the opening ceremony, the reporter said.
Putin said he sought advice from security officers and was told the emergency plan for that type of situation called for the plane to be shot down.
“I told them: act according to the plan,” Putin said, adding that shortly afterwards he arrived at the Olympic venue with the International Olympic Committee officials.
After several minutes Putin received another call, he said, informing him that it was a false alarm – the passenger was drunk and the plane would continue its flight to Turkey.
Yesterday Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the comments in the film.
The country is on a high alert ahead of the football World Cup from June 14 to July 15, with matches in a number of cities.
