In what’s become an annual year-end tradition, Vladimir Putin held forth for nearly four hours at a televised press conference on Thursday. As in past years, the questions were a mix of obscure regional issues, softballs from state-affiliated outlets, and a few tough questions from independent and foreign reporters.

As he has in the past, Putin denied that Russia had meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, dismissing America’s “spy mania” and saying, “This has all been made up by Trump’s opponents to delegitimize him.” He praised Trump’s handling of the economy, saying, “We have seen serious achievements … look at how the markets have grown; it attests to the trust investors are showing in the economy, trust in what Trump is doing in this particular field.” He also said he hoped it would be possible for the two countries to “normalize ties and work together.”

The press conference took place the same day that the Washington Post published a lengthy detailed feature on Trump’s refusal to accept the evidence of Russian involvement in the election. According to the article, which cites U.S. intelligence officials, “Putin and his lieutenants regard the 2016 ‘active measures’ campaign—as the Russians describe such covert propaganda operations—as a resounding, if incomplete, success.” The effort accomplished its two main goals: “destabilizing U.S. democracy and preventing Hillary Clinton, who is despised by Putin, from reaching the White House.” However, the article notes, the Trump era has not entirely worked out well for the Russians. Sanctions imposed by the Obama administration remain in place, the U.S. government has not returned diplomatic compounds seized last year, and the two countries remain at odds on a number of issues including the Iran nuclear deal and North Korea policy.

This last issue came up at the press conference as well, with Putin asking an Associated Press reporter, “Have you noticed that your senators and congressmen look so great, and are supposedly intelligent. They’ve put Russia in the same box as Iran and North Korea, and at the same time want Russia to solve the problem of North Korea. Are they normal people?”

The press conference was Putin’s last before the presidential election in March. Putin faces no serious opposition and will undoubtedly be elected to a fourth term. Putin said Thursday that he planned to run as an independent rather than as the candidate of the ruling United Russia party, which is much less popular than him.

He took a question from Ksenia Sobchak, the reality show star and socialite turned politician who is running against him in the election. (Critics accuse her of being a Kremlin plant.) Sobchak said she was there in her capacity as a journalist for an opposition TV station because Putin refuses to debate his rivals, and asked a question about the treatment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who has been banned from running in the election.

Putin compared Navalny to former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, a longtime rival who escaped police custody in Ukraine last week, saying he offered only radicalism and that “We don’t want Russia to become a version of Ukraine.”

Asked whether it was “boring” to run without any real opposition, Putin said it was not his job to create political opposition.

Assuming all goes according to plan, we’re in for at least six more of these Putin telethons before Russian faces a still-to-be-defined post-Putin reality in 2024.