MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has started his annual televised Direct Line question-and-answer session to sum up the results of the outgoing year.
The event, headlined 'Results of the Year,' is held in Moscow’s main exhibition hall Gostiny Dvor and will again combine his hotline TV show and a large press conference.
The discussion is moderated by VGTRK reporter Pavel Zarubin and Channel One journalist Ekaterina Berezovskaya.
Representatives of federal and regional Russian media, as well as foreign journalists accredited in Russia, are attending the event. Notable media figures are also present, including VGTRK correspondent and Hero of Russia Yevgeny Poddubny, Channel One CEO Konstantin Ernst, and BBC News reporter Steven Rosenberg. According to the broadcast schedule, the channels are allocating three hours of airtime for "Results of the Year with Vladimir Putin."
Live broadcasts from Russian regions, used in previous editions of the program, are not expected this time. However, everyone has a chance to address the president, as only a smartphone is required to do so.
To date, 3 million questions have been received in via different channels.
According to the Kremlin, social security issues are often mentioned in letters to the president. Often, people raise the question of special operation participants and their family members. However, compared to previous years, the number of questions on the subject has declined. The number of complaints about the healthcare sector is also lower than before. "Many systemic problems have been resolved," the presidential spokesman said.
The flow of incoming questions is being processed by Sber’s GigaChat neural network, whose capacities allow combining millions of requests into a comprehensive picture of the day.
Combined format
Earlier, the Direct Line TV show and a large press conference were hold separately. During the first show, the president communicated with citizens, answering to their letters, text messages, phone calls and live broadcasts from regions. During the second one, he took Russian and foreign journalists’ questions. Since 2001, a total of 18 Direct Line TV shows and 16 large media conferences have been held separately.
For the first time, the Kremlin had to combine the two events as a forced measure due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. In 2021, the Kremlin administration returned to the format of the two separate events. But starting from 2023, the combined variant has been used.
For many years, Thursday was traditionally chosen as a standard day of the week for such events. They were held on Thursdays for 28 times, according to TASS calculations. This year, however, the event will take place on Friday.