Putin says Trump won because he 'kept going until the end, when nobody believed in him, except us'

Russian president Vladimir Putin denied hacking the US presidential election in his annual live press conference today, and explained Trump's surprise victory by saying Trump "understood the mood of the people and kept going until the end, when nobody believed in him, except us."

"The Democrats didn't just lose the presidential election, but the House and the Senate as well. Did I do that as well?" he added.

Putin made the remarks in front of a TV studio audience, where he took live questions in his traditional once-yearly off-the-cuff Q&A format. It was live-streamed on YouTube:

It was also live-tweeted by The Guardian's Moscow correspondent, Shaun Walker. Many of the initial questions were about Trump and the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails, which hurt Hilary Clinton's campaign when they were released before the vote:

"Putin was pretty vicious on the Democrats, which is not surprising given the way bilateral relations have been over the past years. Now that Obama is leaving office, Putin can finally say everything he thinks. He portrayed all the accusations of Russian interference as sour grapes from bad losers," Walker wrote for The Guardian.

In reference to the "nobody believed in him, except us" quote, Walker said: "In classic Putin fashion, after denying everything, he gave a little wink-nudge nugget just to muddy the waters."