2023-11-30 09:03:00
Russian and foreign journalists accredited in Moscow will be invited to a special studio
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Photo: Sergey Savostyanov/TASS
Moscow. November 30th. INTERFAX.RU – President Vladimir Putin will sum up the results of the year on December 14, holding a joint “direct line” and a large press conference, his press secretary Dmitry Peskov said.
“On December 14, Vladimir Putin will sum up the results of the year. This will be a program, still a project of television channels, and it will be a combined format of Direct Line and the final press conference of the president,” he told reporters.
Questions from citizens for the “direct line” will begin to be accepted on December 1.
“In the studio, which will be specially created for this purpose, journalists will sit – these are Russian regional journalists, from all regions of Russia, federal journalists, as well as foreign journalists who are accredited in Moscow and continue their work in Moscow,” Peskov said.
He announced the location of the event later.
When asked regarding its timing, he replied: “The Direct Line does not have any clear timing in advance. It is always a very long and meaningful event of a special nature.”
Questions to the “direct line” can be asked toll-free number 8 800 200 4040, you can send a free SMS with a question to number 04040. All ways to send a question are indicated on event website.
“We also have a telephone application for Android, it will work this year, and other options. All this is described in extreme detail on the website I mentioned. In the call center of the program, telephone operators and volunteers will receive calls. And this year’s innovation is The All-Russian Popular Front has joined the project,” Peskov said, clarifying that ONF employees will also collect questions.
“You ask me why the ONF? Because for a number of years, following the completion of the Direct Line, the ONF processed all citizens’ appeals for a year until the last question,” noted the presidential press secretary.
He added that ONF specialists, together with volunteers, will continue to receive citizens’ appeals even following the completion of the program. “They will work for a whole year to ensure that not a single appeal is left unattended,” he said.
Citizens’ appeals will also be received through social networks – VKontakte, Odnoklassniki. “Through them, you can also send a video question or text question to President Putin through a chatbot,” Peskov added.
In 2022, for the first time since 2001, there was no annual presidential press conference. The upcoming event will be held for the first time in the last two years and will be Putin’s 18th “big press conference.”
The combined format was first tried during the pandemic in 2020, incorporating elements of a “straight line” into a large press conference. Then the event lasted 4 hours 29 minutes, during which time Putin answered 68 questions – both from journalists and ordinary Russians.
In 2020, due to the pandemic, Putin communicated with journalists via video conferencing from his residence in Novo-Ogarevo; only a few correspondents from the Kremlin pool were sitting next to him, while the rest of the journalists were at the World Trade Center. Putin’s last big press conference in 2021 was held in the capital’s Manege, already in person.
Accreditation for the last press conference was closed; only representatives of those media outlets who received an invitation from the presidential administration might attend it. Among them were both federal and regional media, as well as representatives of the foreign press, and foreign media were also invited. Explaining then the principles and criteria for forming a list of accredited media, Peskov said: “These are journalists and media outlets that take an active part in covering political, economic events and the presidential agenda.”
Due to restrictions in 2021, the total number of accredited media representatives has decreased significantly – just over five hundred people compared to 774 in 2020 and approximately 1,900 in pre-pandemic 2019. The 2021 press conference lasted 3 hours and 55 minutes, during which time the president answered 55 questions.
Putin has been holding large annual press conferences since 2001. They almost always take place on one Thursday in December. The exception was 2016, when the president’s press conference was postponed to Friday by his personal decision. Putin considered it impossible to hold a meeting with journalists on the day of the funeral of Ambassador Andrei Karlov, who died in Turkey.
The duration of Putin’s press conference is always unpredictable; the record for communication between the president and journalists was set in 2008. Then, in 4 hours and 40 minutes, Putin answered more than 100 questions.
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