Live updates: Putin challenges West to ‘high-tech duel’ in annual press conference

The assassination by Ukraine of the head of Russia‘s chemical, radiological and biological weapons unit, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, “shows the nature of the Kyiv regime, which also kills people in the Kursk region,” Vladimir Putin says.

During his annual press conference, the Russian president added that he was grateful to NBC News’ Keir Simmons, who asked the question, for calling the killing an assassination because “it endangered the lives of others.”

Russia’s senior most military figure, Kirillov was killed by a bomb planted by Ukraine in a scooter in Moscow two days ago.

“Russia is ready for talks with Ukraine, but Ukraine is not ready,” Putin said.

Putin was dismissive in response to another question from NBC News’ Keir Simmons, who put it to the Russian leader that when he meets with President-Elect Trump that Moscow will have the weaker hand in negotiations.

“I don’t know when I’ll meet Trump, but I’m ready for this,” Putin said, adding that, “as for your comment about my weakness: those paying you wish for that.”

The president contended that Russia’s military has in fact become stronger in recent years. “Our defense capabilities are the highest in the world, same for our military industry. Our forces are advancing.”

He went further, saying that Russia, “to a significant degree is in the state we were aiming for. She has become stronger. She has become a truly sovereign country.”

President Putin has said he will ask the deposed former-president of Syria Bashar al-Assad about the U.S. journalist Austin Tice, who went missing in the country 12 years ago. “I promise to ask this question,” he said in response to a question from NBC News’ Keir Simmons.

Assad fled to Russia earlier this month after being ousted by a rapid rebel advance that ended the country’s 13-year-long civil war. Even so, despite harboring Assad, Putin said he has yet to catch up with his ally.

“I have not seen President Assad when he arrived in Moscow,” he said. “But a person went missing 12 years ago, we understand what situation was there back then.”

NBC News exclusively obtained a letter that Tice’s mother had sent Putin late Wednesday asking for his help in finding her missing son.

Russian forces are moving towards achieving their primary goals on the battlefield in Ukraine and were taking control of significant territory every day, Putin said.

“I must say that the situation is changing dramatically,” he said, adding that Russian forces were advancing along the entire battle front.

“There is movement along the entire front line. Every day,” he said.

The Russian president is circumspect when asked about whether the West understood last month’s changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine. “I don’t know how they understood it,” he said. “You’d have to ask them.”

He continued, saying about the West that “if such states pose a threat to us, we reserve the right to use our nuclear weapons against them as well.”

Last month, Putin made changes to Russia’s doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons, setting out new conditions for when the country could deploy its nuclear arsenal. 

Under the modified doctrine, Russia would treat an attack by a non-nuclear state, backed by a nuclear power, as a joint assault.

The Oreshnik missile defense system is a “modern, very new weapon,” Putin says in response to a question referring to the West’s doubts about Russia’s missile capabilities.

“Let us conduct an experiment, sort of high-tech duel. Let them (the West) name a target in Kiev, concentrate their air defense and the let us fire Oreshnik to see if it hits the target,” he said. “No chance of shooting it down.”

The Kremlin announced Monday that Russia would launch the serial production of the missiles in the “near future” to “protect the security of Russia and our allies.”

Russian forces first deployed the Oreshnik missile late last month, striking the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, after Kyiv used long-range missiles provided by France, the United States and the United Kingdom to strike targets within Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov who is moderating the conference scolded people for asking more than one question, only to be mildly mocked by Putin.

“You deprive others of time,” Peskov said to those peppering the Russian leader with questions.

But Putin’s reply, “Dont’ listen to Peskov,” was greeted with laughter from the crowd.

“We are advancing on all directions,” Putin says when asked about events in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces still hold territory. The situation there is “changing dramatically,” he says.

And as if to underscore that point, he mentions the military memorabilia given to him by troops who have been at the front. Two servicemen come up on to the stage to hand him a banner from the soldiers of the 155th Marines Brigade of the Pacific Fleet and hold it aloft behind him.

When asked by a resident of Kursk’s Bolshesoldastsky district about the destroyed villages there, Putin says “it’s certain that Ukrainians will be pushed out and everything will be rebuilt,” and that their push into the region was pointless in the first place.

But Putin adds that he will not “make any predictions about specific date” about when either of those things will happen.

When asked how Russia’s economy remains afloat, Putin gives a characteristically laconic response.

“When everything is stable, we are bored, but when something major happens, when bullets are flying around — we are scared,” the Russian president says.

While he points to what he says is record low unemployment of 2.3% and growing wages, he concedes that “inflation however is a worrying sign.”

Still, he adds, “the situation is stable.”

Putin takes the stage at 12:12 p.m. Moscow time. Jumping straight into questions, he talks about the Russian economy, telling his audience that “everything stands and falls with economy.”

Despite inflation in the country at 9.3%, Putin say the “Russian economy is doing good,” adding that wages and real disposable income have grown, with growth next year estimated to be around 3.9%.

Russia’s central bank may have to further increase interest rates above the current level of 21% that they raised it to in October.

After being subject to a Covid test 24 hours earlier, hundreds of journalists and some ordinary Russians stood in line on a freezing Moscow street as they waited to go through security and into the exhibition hall that began filling up two hours before the event began.

It’s an event that’s designed by the Kremlin to look democratic and to present Putin as a man of the people. Some attendees have arrived wearing local costumes hoping to ask about domestic issues like food prices.

The whole thing so carefully choreographed that even Putin, who is notoriously late for meetings, is expected to be on time.

Ksenia Sobchak, 43, is in the audience. She’s the daughter of St Petersburg’s first democratically elected mayor and she stood against President Putin in Russia’s 2018 election. Sobchak says she wants to be in Russia. But the country has changed over the past six years and she may be asking herself by how much.

Ahead of the conference, Russian citizens have submitted more than 2 million questions to the Russian president through phone calls, texts and social networks, according to the state-run news agency, TASS. 

Questions for the Kremlin leader are expected to range from Russia’s war in Ukraine to domestic issues like rising prices, inflation and healthcare. 

Earlier this week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin would collect questions from Russians in advance to allow the maximum number of people to lodge their appeals, in line with previous years.

Ahead of Putin’s speech at least one person was injured by Ukrainian missile and drone strikes on Russia’s Rostov region, officials said today.

Rostov Acting Governor Yuri Slyusar said a fire had been triggered at the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery after Ukraine had struck the region with at least 13 missiles and dozens of drones, triggering a fire. He added that one person was injured.

The refinery has been repeatedly targeted by Ukraine which has been trying to take out parts of Russia’s oil infrastructure which funds a significant chunk of the country’s war economy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is holding his end-of-year news conference today.

Ordinary citizens will also have a chance to call in with their questions, while journalists — some of whom lined up for hours in freezing temperatures to get into the Moscow event — will also get to put their queries to the Russian leader.

Putin has heavily limited his interaction with the foreign media since fighting began in Ukraine in February 2022.