Friday, the Kremlin said that a technical glitch was behind the interrupted transmission of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech at a Moscow stadium to mark the eighth anniversary of Crimea’s annexation.

As Putin was addressing crowds, state television switched to showing a clip of patriotic music.

Putin was cut mid-sentence as he was saying, "It so happened that the beginning of the operation coincided by chance with the birthday of one of our outstanding military…"

Cited by RIA news agency, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said a server glitch caused the interruption.