MOSCOW, May 18. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual question and answer session, Direct Line with Vladimir Putin, is planned to be held this year, with preliminary preparations already being under way, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told TASS.

"Indeed, the ‘Direct Line’ is mentioned in our plans, but the date is yet to be set," he said. "The dates are yet unknown, but preliminary preparations are under way."

The spokesman said there would be no connection between the dates of the Direct Line and the president’s annual state of the nation address to the Russian parliament, the Federal Assembly.

When asked whether the state of the nation address could be delivered in the second half of 2022, the Kremlin spokesman replied: "No dates [have been set] yet."

The very first ‘Direct Line with Vladimir Putin’ was held in late 2001. Since then, this event has been held annually, except for 2004 and 2012.

Over 400,000 questions were submitted for the very first question-and-answer session. In the following years, the number of requests ranged between one and 1.5 million, reaching 2.3 million in 2006.

The figures been growing ever since then, having reached a record of 3.25 million requests in 2015. In recent years, the number remains at approximately 2-3 million.