Live Updates: Russian President Putin Holds Year-End Press Conference

The Russian president stated that the country has long been striving for friendship with its western partners, but has to take measures and react accordingly if assurances about NATO not spreading eastwards are not fulfilled.

Commenting on the cultural, including religious, differences in Europe, Vladimir Putin pointed to the fiasco of multiculturalism there, while asserting that in Russia, this format has taken hold on its own.

"The project of multiculturalism has suffered a fiasco, a failure, which had to be admitted by many of those who called for this project and its realisation. In Russia, it took hold historically, across the centuries, and we appreciate this a lot", Putin told the audience.

Commenting on his ties with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Putin acknowledged that they don't always see eye to eye, but stressed that the Turkish president is "a man of his word".

“I often have diverging views on certain questions with President Erdogan, sometimes even opposing views. But he is a person who keeps his word, he is a man. He does not wag his tail, if he considers something advantageous for his country then he goes until the end", Putin said, responding to a question about working with world leaders asked at his annual press conference.

Russian President Vladimir Putin fielded a question from a notorious singer, Sergei "Shnur" Shnurov, during his annual press conference about curbs on using profane language in public, to which he replied that Russian was better and richer than just obscenities.

"Look at popular movies, the classics of Soviet filmography … The Russian language is quite rich and allows you to express ideas without resorting to obscenities”, Putin told Sergei "Shnur" Shnurov, who represented the RTVI media outlet at the press conference.

The president thanked the 47-year-old musician and songwriter for not using profanities at the press conference "as you sometimes do on the stage”.

President Vladimir Putin said that everything had its time in response to a question why the Russian Constitution was amended in 2020 and not some other time.

"You know, everything happens in its own time, everything has its time”, Putin told the press conference.

Putin recalled that the 1993 Constitution was adopted amid a domestic crisis that saw open combat and casualties on the streets of Moscow, adding that its adoption had played a stabilising role at the time.

He went on to say that much has since changed, and the amendments were overdue, while the constitution's basic structure remains unchanged.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said the resolution of the conflict in eastern Ukraine and the restoration of ties with Russia depends entirely on the Ukrainian side.

“In my view, the resolution [of the Donbass conflict] is inevitable, it will happen sooner or later, the question is when? In large part, this depends on the current Ukrainian authorities”, the president said.

"When they take office, they rely upon the majority of the population, of the electorate, but when they assume power, they start to hesitate a bit and constantly nod to the extreme nationalistic forces. They, perhaps, lack political courage, and the process freezes", the president pointed out.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday laid out a plan to slash the number of people living below the poverty line in Russia in half over the coming decade.

"The plan as such, is to decrease the number of those living below the poverty line from 13.5 percent today to 6.5 percent of people whose income is below the living wage", Putin said at his annual press conference.

Why were the Russian hackers unable to get @realDonaldTrump get elected this time? Putin responds, Russian hackers have never interfered in the great nation that is the US. US Russian relations have been hostage to domestic affairs. #прессконференция2020 #PutinPresser2020 #Putin pic.twitter.com/upT6n9yXUO

— Daily from the Duma (@FromDuma) December 17, 2020

President Putin referred to publications about those ostensibly behind the poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny not as an investigation, but rather a “legalisation of materials from American intelligence".

He referred to the journalistic investigations on the Navalny case published the other day in a number of media outlets as an attempt to attack the country’s top officials.

The president said US-Russia bilateral ties had been hostage to American policies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasised that US President-Elect Joe Biden is a knowledgeable politician and expressed hope that he will be engaged in solving problems concerning US-Russia relations.

"We proceed from the fact that the US president-elect will understand what happens, he is a knowledgeable man both in terms of domestic and foreign policy. We expect that all the problems that have appeared [in US-Russia relations] or some of them will be solved by the new US administration”, Putin told the presser.

“As for the origins of the coronavirus, there are a lot of rumours. I wouldn’t like to comment on this speaking to the whole country and the world, even more so since we don’t see any proof of any accusations against anyone", the president said.

“We should not now be looking for the guilty [parties], but join efforts to fight the issue, this will be the most appropriate direction of our cooperation", he emphasised.

Russia currently lacks the needed equipment to produce enough vaccines for mass immunisation, but will scale up its production facilities, the president asserted.

"Specialists tell us those vaccines that are going into civil circulation are intended for citizens of a certain age group. There are currently no vaccines for my age group ... I will definitely do this [receive the vaccine] as soon as it becomes possible", Putin, who is 68, told his annual news conference.

He said Russia is among the world's top 3 nations in terms of COVID-19 testing, and, importantly, at the forefront of the production of a coronavirus vaccine. A massive vaccination programme is due to kick off ahead of schedule, from 1 January.

The president went on to say he is confident that Russia will effectively join efforts with other countries to work on the production of vaccines.

Talking of the success of the vaccine developed in Russia, with a 95%-97% success rate, Putin notes that foreign partners are in communication and Swiss/English Company AstraZeneca is ready to work with us. #прессконференция2020 #PutinPresser2020 #Putin pic.twitter.com/6ifPbvP6TM

— Daily from the Duma (@FromDuma) December 17, 2020

💬 #Putin on #Russia's #COVID19 response: Even in most difficult circumstances, we have reaffirmed what underlies the Russian identity – people rallying together in the face of challenges. We've witnessed efforts of our doctors & volunteers – we bow before them#PutinPresser2020 pic.twitter.com/TTCDb4wzl2

— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) December 17, 2020

"I would like to draw your attention to a definitely positive element of economic development, 70 percent of the Russian budget is now being formed not at the expense of oil and gas revenues. It means that we have, not totally, but started to get off the oil and gas needle ... Although our dependence [on oil and gas revenues] is still quite high, and we should take this into account", Putin told his audience.

Vladimir Putin said the COVID pandemic had resulted in severe drops in production. There have been a lot of problems, the president said. The outgoing year has brought both pluses and minuses, but the pandemic has been the major problem.

President Vladimir Putin's presser is organised in a completely different way this year due to pandemic restrictions: a chessboard sitting arrangement will apply, as well as strict requirements regarding wearing protective masks and gloves.

The Kremlin’s press service has also reminded about the prohibition of banners this time, as journalists have hitherto traditionally competed to attract the president’s attention more.

The presser’s participants have been divided into groups, with no more than 247 journalists allowed into the studio of World Trade Center in Moscow, which housed over 1,500 people in previous years.