Donald Trump is “colourful and talented”, Sepp Blatter deserves the Nobel peace prize, the Turkish leadership “decided to lick the Americans in a certain place” and Russia – after all the denials – did have “people working on certain issues, including in the military sphere”, inside Ukraine.



Thus was the world in 2015 according to Vladimir Putin, who spent three hours fielding questions on everything from the fate of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to his own “sporty physique” during his annual press conference.

As usual, Putin’s press conference was unlike any other. Nearly 1,400 journalists were accredited for the event, held in a huge Moscow hall, and many of them applauded the Russian president’s entrance and various answers. It was attended by everyone from international correspondents to reporters from the smallest regional newspapers across Russia and, as usual, many had made creative signs in the hope of attracting the leader’s attention. “I’m pregnant,” said one sign, while another stated “from Siberia with a request about love”. Someone had drawn a portrait of Putin with a heart on it; another merely waved a large red heart in the air.

Amid the adoration, there were outbreaks of journalism, with Putin facing tough questions on Russian troops in Ukraine, corruption in the elite and whether Katerina Tikhonova, an “acrobatic rock’n’roll” dancer who now runs a huge project linked to Moscow State University, is his daughter. He said he did not comment on his daughters, but added that both of them live and work in Russia, and in the absence of a denial, essentially confirmed that Tikhonova is his daughter.

The first three questions were all devoted to the difficult economic situation, with falling oil prices prompting worries that 2016 will be a tough year. There were also tough words for Turkey, with Putin ignoring a question about Turkish students being deported and other human costs of the Russian response to Turkey downing a Russian plane last month, and instead repeating his indignation with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.



“Experience shows it’s hard or almost impossible to come to an agreement with the current Turkish leadership. Even when we say ‘yes we agree’, they stab us in the side or the back, for absolutely incomprehensible reasons,” he said.

A Ukrainian reporter sent a sarcastic hello to Putin from two Russians, apparently military intelligence officers, who were captured by Ukrainians in the east of the country and are now on trial in Kiev. The journalist asked about Putin’s repeated insistence that Russian troops have not been involved in the east Ukraine conflict.



Putin’s response was surprising: “We never said there were not people there who were working on certain issues, including in the military sphere, but this does not mean there were regular Russian forces there,” he said. “Feel the difference.”



This was where the event required a shade of Jeremy Paxman, or at least a follow-up question. For a start, Putin has never before said that Russia has people “working on certain issues” in the military sphere in Donbass. But that went unchallenged, as did the details. Who exactly was Putin referring to? How many of these people did he suggest were there? What about the clear evidence that there have been injections of regular Russian troops at key moments?

There were some ruthlessly aggressive questions, including one reporter who grilled Putin on allegations of corruption against the sons of his billionaire friends – the “new elite” that has grown up and is mainly based around Putin’s old acquaintances from St Petersburg. She also asked about recent allegations published by the opposition politician Alexei Navalny on corruption and links with organised crime among top figures in the Russian prosecutor’s office, including the sons of the prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika.

“As for Chaika ... As for Chaika ... As for ... who else?” Putin said, making an uncharacteristic stumble. He proceeded to say checks would be made and intriguingly steered clear of defending his prosecutor general. But again there was no chance to follow up and find out what lay between the lines of the evasive answer.



Other questioners made little effort to grill the president. One regional reporter who had a question about farming could not resist a fawning introduction: “The thing is, as a woman I can’t help but compliment our president on the fact you are in such good sporty shape,” she gushed. “Thank you so much for this, because our young lads take your example, it’s true! And so many more young people now play sports,” she said.

Vladimir Putin calls Donald Trump a 'very colourful and talented man' Read more

“And without any doping,” Putin purred back at her, revelling in the compliment and referring to a previous question about doping allegations against Russian athletes.

He rarely looked uncomfortable, but overall, Putin was not quite on the sparkling form that he sometimes shows at these events. This was his 11th giant question and answer session and there was a sense that he was just going through the motions.

There was a bit of aggressive geopolitics: he accused the Turkish leadership of “trying to lick the Americans in a certain place” and said the appointment of the former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili as governor of Odessa was “spitting in the face of the Ukrainian people”.

But there was nothing along the lines of last year’s extraordinary metaphor comparing Russia to a bear in the forest, with the west trying to tear out its teeth and claws until it became a mere stuffed toy.

He told two jokes, but both lacked his usual sharp vitriol and he seemed almost eager to finish. The allotted time for the press conference was three hours, but Putin has been known to go for almost five. This time, shortly after the three-hour mark came, the president wrapped proceedings up, leaving hundreds of journalists with another year to wait to ask their questions.

• This article was amended on 18 December 2015. An earlier version quoted Putin as saying Donald Trump is “bright and talented”. To clarify: the word Putin used was “yarkii” (яркий), which can mean bright or brilliant, but not in the sense of intelligent; it can also be translated as colourful, vivid or flamboyant.