A direct line with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the traditional format will not take place this year.

This was announced by the press secretary of the Russian leader Dmitry Peskov.

He explained that in connection with the prevailing conditions this year, the president has actually been "holding a direct line for the past few months."

“Therefore, of course, it would be superfluous to conduct a direct line this year in its traditional format,” TASS quoted Peskov as saying.

A spokesman for the head of state clarified that elements of a direct line that will allow the president to receive feedback from citizens from different regions will be included in Putin's annual press conference in December.

Recall that at the end of July, Peskov reported that the timing of the direct line with Vladimir Putin has not yet been determined.

Prior to that, in June, Peskov noted that the president would conduct a full-length direct line after the vote on amendments to the Constitution.

The past traditional direct line with Vladimir Putin took place on June 20, 2019 and became the 17th in a row.

In 4 hours 8 minutes, the head of state answered 81 questions.

In total, the information processing center received 2.6 million questions.

The main topics of the 17th straight line were the level of income of the population, the situation in the healthcare sector, problems of small and medium-sized businesses, garbage reform and the "anti-drug" article 228 of the Criminal Code. 

In particular, citizens in their appeals expressed dissatisfaction with the level of wages, which sometimes turn out to be below the minimum wage.

Vladimir Putin noted the inadmissibility of such a situation.

He drew attention to the fact that the dynamics of real incomes are negatively affected by the increased credit liabilities of the population, and called on the Central Bank to pay attention to the problem of the growing debt of individuals.

Putin pointed out that incomes of the population have indeed been declining in recent years, but now they "have begun to recover."

The President noted that the state intends to improve the social security of families, and also called the implementation of national projects a key condition for improving the living standards of Russians.

In addition, Putin stressed that people's health and lives are "an absolute priority."

  • kremlin.ru

Answering Russians' questions about the so-called garbage reform, as well as interruptions in waste disposal, expansion of landfills and landfills, Vladimir Putin said that he sees a way out of the current situation in the implementation of the previously adopted program, which provides for the construction of 200 waste processing complexes. 

During the broadcast, the president also touched on topics such as the status of refugees from southeastern Ukraine, United States policy, and Russia's efforts to defend against cyber attacks.

He pointed out that Moscow has repeatedly offered the United States to start a dialogue to develop any rules in cyberspace, "but so far have not received any intelligible answer."

For the first time, such a live broadcast with the Russian leader took place in 2001, after which it was held annually, with the exception of 2004 and 2012.

In 2008-2011, when Vladimir Putin was the prime minister of Russia, the program was called "Conversation with Vladimir Putin."

The 2013 program became the longest - the president answered questions from citizens for 4 hours and 47 minutes. 

Until 2009, the dialogue with citizens took place in the format of a video conference.

Over the past few years, the head of state has been answering questions in the presence of an audience that consists of representatives of business, science and popular artists.

In addition, since 2018, members of the government and heads of regions have been in touch with the president and the people.

Another major annual event that Putin has been hosting since 2001 is the annual big press conference.

The event did not take place from May 2008 to May 2012, when Putin was prime minister, but after returning to the presidency, Vladimir Putin resumed the practice of holding such meetings with the press.

The previous big press conference of the President of Russia took place on December 19, 2019.

Recall that since the end of March 2020, in connection with the epidemic of coronavirus infection, Vladimir Putin held most of the events by videoconference at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence and in the Kremlin.

During this time, he has repeatedly made appeals to Russians, during which he talked about measures to combat COVID-19 and decisions to support citizens and businesses during the pandemic.