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Direct Line with Vladimir Putin

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Putin’s Q&A session to be held without a studio audience this year, says Kremlin

Dmitry Peskov noted that the Q&A session will include plenty of high-tech features, with a special focus made on the app for smartphones

Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov Mikhail Metzel/TASS

Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov

© Mikhail Metzel/TASS

MOSCOW, June 22. /TASS/. The annual Q&A session of Russian President Vladimir Putin will be held without a live studio audience this year, and citizens will be able to use a special app to ask the Russian leader questions, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

Peskov noted that the session’s hosts will talk to the president "after analyzing the whole bulk of questions". "Understandably, there will be no audience in the studio this year," the spokesman said.

He noted that the Q&A session will include plenty of high-tech features, with a special focus made on the smartphone app. "This app allows every citizen of our country to essentially become a TV and radio reporter, and to record their question without any mediators, showing, what they want, from the outside world, or to formulate their question in writing," Peskov said.

The spokesman stressed that the goal of this year’s Q&A session is for people to speak directly to the president. "There will be a direct conversation, the president will be able to see the whole palette of common topics, subtopics, and what topics prevail in different regions of the country".

Putin’s Q&A session

The Kremlin press service announced that the traditional Q&A session of Russian President Vladimir Putin would be held on June 30. Anyone is able to submit a question via the special Moscow-Putin mobile app, which sets up an instant video connection to the studio during the broadcast, the press service stated. Questions will also be received via the show’s website moskva-putinu.ru, text or MMS messages sent to 0-40-40 and by phone to 8-800-200-40-40.

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Text and video questions to the president can also be submitted via Russia’s social networks VK and Odnoklassniki, where official groups for the Q&A have been created: vk.com/moskvaputinu and ok.ru/moskvaputinu.

Questions can be submitted from 12 pm local time on June 20 until the end of the program on June 30. The call center can be reached from anywhere in Russia by dialing 8-800-200-40-40. To call from abroad one should dial +7-499-550-40-40, +7-495-539-40-40.

SMS and MMS messages are accepted on 0-40-40 only if sent through Russian telecom operators. Sending the message is free of charge. Questions should be written in Russian and contain no more than 70 characters.

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