moscow russian president vladimir putin on thursday rejected allegations that the kremlin was behind the poisoning of his top political foe opposition leader alexei navalny and accused us intelligence agencies of fomenting the claimsspeaking via video call during an annual marathon news conference the russian leader countered the accusations by saying that if the kremlin wanted to poison navalny it would have pressed the attack homeif there was such a desire it would have been done putin said with a chucklenavalny fell sick on aug 20 during a domestic flight in russia and was flown while he was in a coma to germany for treatment two days later labs in germany france and sweden and tests by the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons established that he was exposed to a sovietera novichok nerve agentrussian authorities have vehemently rejected the accusations of involvement in the poisoningon monday the investigative group bellingcat and russian outlet the insider released a report alleging that operatives from the fsb russias domestic security agency which is a top kgb successor followed navalny during his trips since 2017 had specialized training in chemical weapons chemistry and medicine and were in the vicinity of the opposition activist in the days and hours of the timerange during which he was poisonedthe investigation conducted by bellingcat and the insider in cooperation with cnn and der spiegel identified the supposed fsb operatives and laboratories where poisons like novichok were made after analyzing telephone metadata and flight information it mentioned two instances in 2019 and 2020 in which navalny or his wife yulia suffered from unexplained symptomsnavalny said the investigation has proven beyond doubt that fsb operatives tried to kill him on putins ordersin his first comment after the reports publication putin charged that the new report relied on the data provided by us spy agencies even though its authors have denied any link to us or any other western intelligence servicesits not some kind of investigation its just the legalization of materials provided by us special services he said adding that it means that navalny relies on the support of us special servicesits curious and in that case special services indeed need to keep an eye on him putin said but that doesnt mean that there is a need to poison him who would need thathe alleged that navalny was accusing the kremlin of ordering to poison him in order to raise his political profile as the top opposition figure ny reasonable person would see such an approach as flawed he said