MOSCOW, November 28. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forthcoming message to parliament will be particularly special in terms of content, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told TASS.
"The presidential message to the Federal Assembly is a traditional event by and large, but each message is different from the others," he said in reply to the question to what extent the forthcoming address by the head of state will be different from the previous ones.
"As before, this year it will be very different in content, while the backbone of it will remain unchanged," Peskov said.
Putin will address both houses of the Federal Assembly on December 1. Peskov avoided mentioning any details, merely suggesting to wait for the day of the presidential address.
It will be the 23rd presidential message in Russia’s recent history and Putin’s 13th. By tradition, the ceremony will begin in the St. George Palace of the Moscow Kremlin at noon Moscow time. Alongside the members of both houses of parliament invited to the event there will be government members, presiding judges of the Constitutional and Supreme Courts, the Prosecutor-General, heads of the Central Election Commission, Audit Chamber and Civic Chamber, regional leaders, other senior officials, heads of the main churches, and mass media workers. The message will be telecast live.
The message to the Federal Assembly is considered as one of the main presidential events of the year and draws corresponding interest from both Russian and world mass media. Last year more than fifteen hundred media workers representing dailies and other periodicals, online resources and television and radio companies were accredited at last year’s message.
It is the president’s constitutional duty to read out a message containing evaluations of the current state of affairs in the country and identify key domestic and foreign policy guidelines.