'We would have finished the job': Putin denies Russia involvement in Navalny poisoning

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied involvement in the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, saying during an annual press conference that the opposition leader would be dead if the Russian state had wanted to kill him.

An investigation by Bellingcat and several other media outlets earlier this week identified and linked an elite FSB intelligence unit to the Aug 9 poisoning of Mr Navalny, which left him in coma for weeks.

Phone records and flight manifests indicate that a team of eight Russian agents were in close contact with the 44-year-old politician, with three of them trailing him for days.

Speaking at his annual marathon press conference on Thursday, President Putin, who referred to Mr Navalny as a “patient of a Berlin clinic”, said that the investigation was simply “laundering” data and materials of Western intelligence agencies, alleging that Mr Navalny may have ties to foreign intelligence.

“If that is true, then of course, our agents should keep an eye on him,” President Putin said. While indirectly confirming Bellingcat’s findings about the Russian agents following Mr Navalny’s every move, the Russian leader rejected accusations that the Russian state was out there to kill him.

“That doesn’t mean one should poison him. Who is he to bother with?” Mr Putin said with a chuckle. “Anyway, if we had wanted to poison him, we probably would have finished the job.”

He did not answer the journalist’s question about why there is still no criminal inquiry into the attempted murder.

Mr Navalny, who is still convalescing in Germany after an initially speedy recovery, fell suddenly ill on a plane from Siberia to Moscow in August.

Several European laboratories have confirmed that his blood had traces of the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok, which was also used in the 2018 Salisbury poisoning of former Soviet spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

Mr Putin on Thursday repeatedly evoked allegations of foreign interference, dismissing recent exposes about the stunning wealth of his alleged family members as a smear campaign on behalf of Western intelligence agencies

Commenting on reports that Kirill Shamalov, a man often described as his one-time son-in-law, the Russian president neither confirmed, nor denied his relation to the man but insisted that there was nothing unusual in the young executive acquiring a $380 million share in a major petrochemicals company for just $100.

Mr Putin, who has been at the helm of Russia as president and prime minister for the past two decades, holds his marathon news conferences every year.

Due to coronavirus precautions, President Putin this year spoke for more than four hours from his out-of-town residence via a video-link while journalists sat in a conference hall in Moscow.

Selected Kremlin pool journalists were allowed to be in the same room with the president but they reportedly had to self-isolate for two weeks before the event.

Mr Putin on Thursday also lauded Russia’s efforts to develop its coronavirus vaccine but said that he would not be taking it himself soon since current guidelines recommend vaccination only for those under 65. The Russian president, 68, vowed to get the Sputnik V vaccine “as soon as it becomes possible.”

Russia posted 587 deaths and new 28,214 confirmed coronavirus cases on Thursday, bringing the overall tally to nearly 2.8 million in the country of 142 million.

Faced even with largely innocuous questions from state-owned Russian media, Mr Putin on Thursday had to deflect criticism about falling living standards and referred to Russia’s economic indicators from 20 years ago when he came to power, pointing out that Russians were much worse off back then.