Putin plans traditional live question-and-answer session for December

ST. PETERSBURG. November 20. KAZINFORM Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will have a traditional live question-and-answer session with citizens in December, Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Friday; Kazinform refers to Itar-Tass.

That would be the third live dialog in the past two and a half years of Putin's premiership. Before that, he had six live question-and-answer sessions in the presidential capacity.

After the latest session held on December 3, 2009, the State Duma discussed the topicality of that instrument of state management and probing of the public opinion. The majority of deputies said that the instrument was topical and successful, while the opposition described it as an outdated talk show and called for live dialogs with parliamentary parties.

The previous session lasted for four hours, and Putin answered 87 out of almost three million questions, which related to economic, social, ideological, cultural, international and personal issues. The majority of people, whose questions Putin was unable to answer live, received answers from the government later on.