Nearly 1.9Mln Questions Submitted for Putin's 'Direct Line' Q&A Session

Almost 1.9 million questions were received for the Thursday's "Direct Line" with Vladimir Putin, a program where the Russian leader will answer questions live on air, Russian media reported Thursday citing the call center employees.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — A bulk of the inquiries to the Russian leader were passed through telephone calls, nearly 370,000 were received in text message form, and around 280,000 were sent via social media, the Russia 24 TV channel reported. The questions came both from across Russia and abroad, it added.

Last year, the Russian leader answered 80 questions out of more than 2.3 million that had been received. The program stayed on air for three and a half hours.

This year’s "Direct Line" will be the fifteenth time Vladimir Putin will go on air to answer inquiries sent to him through various channels. It will be broadcast by several state TV channels and radio stations.