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During his annual press conference, Putin initially spoke in a pro-Western tone. In recent years, Russian-Western relations have reached their lowest level since the Cold War.
He told reporters that the Washington-Moscow ties had become “hostages to US domestic politics”, adding that he hoped some of the existing problems would be “resolved under the new administration.”
“We believe that the president-elect of the United States will fix things because he has experience in both domestic and foreign policy,” the Russian leader said.
Although Putin has become one of the last major leaders to welcome the US president-elect, the Kremlin host earlier this week said he was ready to “cooperate” with Biden.
“If there were such a wish, it would be done”
But in recent weeks, tensions between Russia and the West have risen over the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navaln.
Navaln, 44, felt ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow in August and was later transferred to a hospital in Berlin.
Experts from several Western countries concluded that the opposition was poisoned with the nerve paralyzing substance “Novičiok” created by Soviet scientists. Moscow has repeatedly denied such accusations.
This week, several Western publications published a joint investigation, which mentions the names of experts from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who may have been following A. Navalna for several years, as well as photos of them.
When the issue came up during a press conference on Thursday, Putin’s tone hardened.
He said US special services had “changed” the investigation, led by investigative journalism website Bellingcat and published by CNN television, German magazine Der Spiegel and Russian website The Insider.
Putin also said Navalna was supported by US special services, although the study authors deny any ties to the US or other Western intelligence services.
The Russian leader rejected the accusations against the Kremlin, saying that if the Kremlin had wanted to poison Navalna, it would have staged the attack at home.
“If there were such a wish, it would be done,” Putin said with a laugh.
Navaln himself said Thursday that Putin’s comments amount to confessions.
“Putin acknowledged it all,” wrote a critic of the Kremlin on Twitter. “I mean yeah, the FSB has been following me for 4 years.”
“White and fluffy”
In response to the Navaln poisoning, the European Union banned six alleged officials, including FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov, from entering its territory and froze their accounts.
These sanctions were the latest in a series of restrictive measures taken by Western countries against Russia since 2014, when the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula was annexed.
Two years later, tensions rose dramatically over allegations that Moscow interfered in the US presidential election in favor of Donald Trump.
On Thursday, Putin again denied the accusations, saying that it was the West that would intervene in the “world” elections and “try to interfere” in the Russian parliamentary elections next year.
Later, during a press conference, a Western journalist asked Putin if he was taking responsibility for the rising tensions or if Russia was “white and fluffy.”
“Compared to you, yes, we are white and fluffy,” replied the Kremlin host, stating that Russia had “liberated” many countries after the Soviet era in 1991.
The Russian leader said at the time that the West had violated “guarantees that NATO would not expand eastward” in later years.
“Who is white and fluffy and who is aggressive? We are not aggressive, “said V. Putin.
And if Russia cannot be called “fluffy,” he added, it could at least be described as “very benevolent, prone to dialogue and the search for compromise solutions.”
“In the words of Cat Leopold in one of our cartoons, I would like to say, ‘Let’s live in a friendly way!'” Putin summed up at his annual press conference.
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