MINSK, December 6. /TASS/. The Kremlin is set to begin receiving questions for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s combined annual press conference and Q&A session on the night from Saturday to Sunday, Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

"On the night from Saturday to Sunday, we will start receiving questions… we will be opening the windows at midnight in line with the time zone of each region," Peskov said.

The spokesman added that the questions could be delivered via telephone calls and text messages. It is also possible to post them on the website of the "Year-End Recap with Vladimir Putin" program or on social network platforms. A video question for the Russian president can be recorded using the smartphone application "Moscow, to Putin."

Peskov said earlier in the day that Russian President Putin would hold his annual press conference and Q&A session together on December 19 at noon Moscow time.

Putin’s press conferences and Q&A sessions

This will be the third time the event will be combined in this way. The president first tested out this format in 2020, with the Kremlin describing the concept as "part press conference, part call-in show." That year, the two events were combined due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented them from being held separately.

The government came back to this format in 2023, with the Kremlin explaining that it helped to "summarize outcomes in all areas." The new format was called "Year-End Recap with Vladimir Putin." Since 2001, the Q&A session has been held 18 times, while the year-end press conference took place 16 times, excluding the combined events.

The Q&A session took place even when Putin was Russia’s prime minister (from May 2008 to May 2012), when he took calls from Russians live on the air four times. No sessions were held in 2004, 2012, and 2022. Likewise, the big year-end press conference was not held in 2005 and 2022. From 2009-2011, during his stint as prime minister, Putin also did not take year-end questions from reporters in this format. While there was no full-fledged big press conference in 2022, Putin did meet with journalists from the Kremlin pool at the end of the year to answer pressing questions.