President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said Russians "do not want and will not stand for" a Ukraine-style coup as he responded to a question from a rival presidential candidate at an annual press conference.

"Do you want us to have coup attempts here? We've already been through all that. You want to go back to that? I am sure that the overwhelming majority of Russian citizens do not want this and will not stand for it," he told Ksenia Sobchak, who announced in October she would run in presidential elections next year.