Putin says he got the Sputnik COVID vaccine

Russian President Vladimir Putin held his annual Q&A broadcast with Russians on Wednesday where he responded to questions from people across the country.   

At the start of the event, he said he had been inoculated with the  Russia-developed Sputnik V vaccine.

"I thought that I needed to be protected as long as possible. So I chose to be vaccinated with Sputnik V. The military is getting vaccinated with Sputnik V, and after all, I'm the commander-in-chief."

He also stressed that he is against imposing nationwide mandatory COVID vaccinations, "I don't support mandatory vaccination, and I continue to hold this point of view."

Regarding the origin of the coronavirus, he said the origin was irrelevant to the danger posed by it.

Putin hopes to avoid a new lockdown

Putin also expressed hope that Russia could avoid a new nationwide lockdown amid a surge in new cases.

Russia is currently grappling with a spike in infections spurred by the highly contagious delta variant first detected in India.

Health authorities recorded 21,042 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, while the official death toll rose by 669, a record number of fatalities for the second day in a row.

Putin urged Russians to get vaccinated amid signs of growing vaccine hesitancy in the country.

"It is necessary to listen, not to people who understand little about this and spread rumors, but to specialists," he said.

What Putin said on Russia-Ukraine ties

Putin also spoke about Russia's troubled relations with Ukraine. He downplayed the idea of meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"Why should I meet with Zelenskyy if he has given up his country to full external control?" Putin said, adding that key issues related to Ukraine are not resolved in Kyiv, but in Washington and partly in Berlin and Paris.

"What is there to discuss? I'm not refusing [to meet him], I just need to understand what to talk about."

Tensions between the two sides have been running high in recent months. In April, Russia deployed about 100,000 troops on Ukraine's borders.

It sparked fears of a major escalation in the long-running conflict. Moscow soon announced a pullback, but Ukraine and the US say the withdrawal has been limited.

Putin's take on the UK warship incident in Black Sea

Tensions between Russia and the UK ran high recently when Moscow said its navy had fired warning shots at a British warship to chase it out of Black Sea waters off the coast of Crimea.

Russia said the British navy ship violated its territorial waters. The UK rejected Moscow's account of the incident and said the ship was making "an innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters in accordance with international law."

On Wednesday, Putin said it was a "provocation" and was done to test Russia's military response.

"[But] even if we had sunk the British destroyer near Crimea it is unlikely that the world would have been on the verge of World War III," he said.

Putin also claimed that a US reconnaissance aircraft was operating in sync with the British destroyer at the time of the incident. He added that Moscow was aware of the US intentions and responded accordingly to avoid revealing sensitive data.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. However, many nations worldwide do not recognize the annexation and consider the region to be part of Ukrainian territory.

Putin on a possible successor

The Russian leader on Wednesday said he would name his possible successor at the right time, although he noted that the decision would ultimately lie in the hands of voters.

"A time will come when, I hope, I can say that such or such a person is worthy in my opinion of leading such a wonderful country like Russia, our homeland," he said.

Putin has been in power either as president or prime minister since the turn of the century.

His current six-year term in the Kremlin is due to end in 2024.

Last year, Russia changed its constitution allowing him to run for two more six-year terms. That means Putin could potentially remain president until 2036.

sri/rt (Reuters, AFP, AP)