Russian President Vladimir Putin refutes reports that Russia's security services were behind the poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, saying that if they were, the opposition leader would not be alive. Navalny, 44, fell violently ill during a flight from Siberia to Moscow in August and was hospitalised in the Russian city of Omsk before being transported to Berlin by medical aircraft. Experts of several Western countries concluded that the Kremlin critic was poisoned with the Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent -- a claim that Moscow has repeatedly denied.
