Putin says Russia could have ‘finished’ Navalny

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow had no need to poison opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but that if Russian special services “wanted to, probably, they would have finished it.”

Speaking at his annual news conference Thursday, Putin returned to his usual habit of never mentioning Navalny by name, referring to him only as “the patient in the Berlin clinic.” Navalny, who was poisoned in August with a military-grade nerve agent, was permitted to leave Russia for treatment in a German hospital.

Asked why Russian authorities have not opened a legal case into the attempted killing of Navalny, Putin pivoted and used the question to dismiss a recent investigative report by Bellingcat and other news organizations that used geolocation to show Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, was behind the assassination attempt on Navalny. The report also identified specific agents of the FSB, the Russian domestic intelligence agency, who followed Navalny to the Siberian city of Tomsk, where he was poisoned.

Putin, however, claimed it was all the doing of U.S. clandestine services, saying the report was based on “materials from the American special services.”

He insisted that Russian agents know better than to be tracked using their mobile phones, which is how Bellingcat said it traced the movements of the FSB officers and ultimately identified them.

Putin, however, said it was evidence that the U.S. was involved and, therefore, perhaps Russian intelligence agencies should be tracking Navalny.

“It means that this patient of the Berlin clinic is supported by the special services, of the United States in this case,” Putin said. “And if this is correct, then it is interesting, then the special services, of course, should look after him.

“But this does not mean at all that it is necessary to poison him,” Putin continued. “Who needs him? If they really wanted to, they probably would have finished it.” Putin then noted that he had personally given “the command” allowing Navalny to go to Germany for treatment.

But even as he acknowledged intervening in the medical case of a private citizen, Putin complained about critics of the government who try to equate themselves with top officials. “The trick is to attack the top officials, and in this way pull themselves up to a certain level, and say … ‘I am the same caliber person,’” Putin said. “In my opinion, these are not tricks that should be used in order to achieve respect and recognition from people. You need to prove your worth.”

At another point, Putin was asked why Russian hackers had failed to help get U.S. President Donald Trump re-elected, and if he intended to offer Trump asylum as in the case of Edward Snowden, the former security contractor who fled to Russia. “This is not a question on your part, it is a provocation,” Putin replied, before insisting, as Trump has many times, that allegations of Russian election meddling were all a hoax.

“Russian hackers did not help the current president of the United States to be elected and did not interfere in the internal affairs of this great power,” Putin said. “This is all speculation, this is all a reason to spoil relations between Russia and the United States. This is a reason not to recognize the legitimacy of the current president of the United States of America for domestic political American reasons.”

Putin’s annual news conferences are typically hours-long, freewheeling affairs with journalists bringing props along to wave and try to grab the president’s eye so they can ask a question. This year, because of the coronavirus pandemic, nearly all journalists were gathered in remote locations, connected by videoconference. Still, one woman in Tula, a city south of Moscow, got the attention of Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov with a sign that said “I’m pregnant.”

Pressed about her sign, the reporter said she was pregnant but admitted to Putin that it was just a way to get called upon. “You cheated us,” Putin said. “But there’s no harm.”