During his annual year-end conference, Russian President Vladamir Putin addressed a recently released investigation that suggested Russia's FSB intelligence agency officers poisoned opposition leader Alexey Navalny with a nerve agent.
The detailed investigation used phone and flight records to claim the officers followed Navalny for years. The agents were in the Siberian city of Tomsk when he was poisoned, which Putin explained was because Navalny "benefits from the support of the American intelligence services."
After calling the investigation "the legalization of material from the American intelligence services," Putin rejected claims of officers poisoning Navalny. He added, "If that's so -- and it is so, believe me -- then this patient in the Berlin clinic, he benefits from the support of the American intelligence services in the given case. Then of course the security services should keep an eye on him. That absolutely doesn't mean they need to poison him, who needs that? If they wanted to, they would have finished the job."
During the conference, Putin also responded to Biden winning the election, and he's hopeful that relations between Russia and the U.S. will improve. After calling Biden "experienced," he stated, "We start from the position that the newly elected president of the U.S. will get what is happening. He's an experienced person -- both in internal and external politics. And we count on all the problems, which have arisen -- well if not all, at least part of them -- will be resolved under the new administration."
Source: NBC News
