Direct Line with Vladimir Putin: President's annual Q&A session

MOSCOW. KAZINFORM Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the nationwide audience during his annual Direct Line question and answer session, during the course of which he regularly manages to answer a multitude of questions flooding in by telephone, text, email, social media, or live via television studios.

According to infographics released by the Rossiya-24 channel, a total of 1,053,326 questions have been submitted as of 09:00 Moscow time on Wednesday. More than half of them (616,505 questions) were submitted by phone, 291,311 - via SMS and MMS messages, 55,133 - via the mobile app, 49,800 - via the program's website and 40,557 - via social networks, TASS reports.

This will be Putin's 17th Q&A session. The very first ‘Direct Line with Vladimir Putin' was held in late 2001. Since then, this renowned event has been held annually, except for 2004 and 2012. Last year, the Q&A marathon took place on June 7.