Vladimir Putin Shrugs Off Alexei Navalny's Poisoning: 'Who Needs Him?'

In his marathon year-end news conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin projected confidence and defiance on a range of issues — and vehemently denied government involvement in the recent poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

On Thursday, Putin appeared during the latest iteration of a Q-and-A that regularly tops four hours, which he has led for nearly two decades running.

The Kremlin is widely suspected of having orchestrated the poisoning of Navalny, who has long been a thorn in the side of a government that does not often tolerate dissent.

Navalny fell critically ill during a flight from Siberia to Moscow in August. He was flown to Germany for medical treatment and spent more than two weeks in a medically induced coma. Since his recovery, he has maintained that this was an assassination attempt perpetrated by a Russian intelligence group, with personal approval from Putin.

Western leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have said the poisoning was carried out with a variant of Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent that has been detected in the systems of other Russian critics who have been attacked abroad. Earlier this week, a report released by the research group Bellingcat found that Kremlin agents had tailed the 44-year-old opposition figure for years before the attack.