Good morning. For the next few hours, we'll be live blogging Russian President Vladimir Putin's annual phone-in. To get the ball rolling, here's an item on what to expect from RFE/RL's news desk:
Putin Faces Growing Discontent During Q&A Session With Public
Rising public discontent, dipping presidential ratings, and a stagnating economy come with this year’s June 20 dial-in session with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.
Choreographed to portray the president as a benevolent leader who cares about the plight of ordinary Russians, the rare yearly public performance allows Putin to shift blame for much of the country's ills to local officials.
For the 2019 session, millions of Russians nationwide have been invited to pose questions that will be selected for the live broadcast. Usually, the hand-picked questions that Putin answers are about domestic issues.
In the past, they've varied from questions about dilapidated housing and roads to the affordability of drugs and public corruption.
On international diplomacy, the 66-year-old Putin has previously fielded questions on the possibility of World War III erupting, strained relations with Ukraine, and the freeing of imprisoned foreigners.
Leading up to his 17th Q&A session under the format, Russian authorities have freed or reduced widely perceived trumped-up charges against journalists, human rights activists, and opposition figures.
Putin faces a public whose disapproval with the country's course is at a 12-year high, based on findings in January from the independent Levada polling group.
Confidence in Putin dipped to a three-year low last month to 31.7 percent, according to the Russian state-run pollster VTsIOM.
Poverty remains an issue as nearly half of Russian households say they can only afford bare necessities and not durable goods like furniture and appliances, a survey by the state-run Rosstat statistics agency found in May.
Up to $300 billion in potential investment has been lost since Russia illegally annexed Crimea in March 2014, economist Sergei Guriev of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, told Russia’s The Bell media outlet in May.
Limited Cash Flows
Numerous rounds of U.S. and European Union sanctions over Russia’s interference in Ukraine have limited foreign cash inflows.
Results have been mixed on Putin's pledges to fix or follow through on public grievances. Televised on-the-ground appearances usually accompany him when promises are kept.
In 2017, Putin arranged for a woman to be relocated from her home in a decrepit wooden building in Izhevsk, Udmurtia, to a studio apartment where her sister’s family was also given a separate living space.
Putin also sent the woman and her family on a $21,000 vacation in Russia's Black Sea resort city of Sochi.
Conflicting accounts on the outcome of promises have emerged, too.
In 2017, an 11-year-old boy complained that coal dust from the unloading of cargo ships was polluting the air in the Far Eastern port city of Nakhodka.
While the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid reported that the problem was solved with the installation of an air-quality monitor and implementation of green space programs, other local media said it wasn’t.
Gazeta.ru, for example, reported that the only change implemented was to unload coal ships at night.
'No Time-Limit'
Putin displays stamina in the few public appearances he makes, including the annual state-of-the-nation address and news conference.
Like the question-and-answer session with journalists, the phone-in program could last hours. In 2013, the broadcast lasted nearly five hours and in 2015, a record 3.25 million questions were submitted.
In 2018, 2.7 million questions or complaints were submitted.
Regarding the time limit for the broadcast, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on June 18 that there were "no restrictions."
Five television channels, four of which are state-run, will broadcast the event. Three radio stations will air it.
Questions started being accepted on June 9 by telephone, text message, and the Internet.
The state-run TASS news agency has reported that the emphasis in 2019 is to answer "as many submitted questions as possible."
TASS says Putin could also contact heads of regions or ministers on certain topics.
With reporting by the Moscow Times, The Bell, and TASS
Questions, Demands, And Pleas For President Putin
Vladimir Putin holds an annual session on national television in which citizens can call in and ask the president questions. Ahead of the event, Current Time TV asked Russians what they would like to ask Putin, given the chance, while local activists were holding demonstrations to address their concerns directly to the president. (By Current Time, RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service)
- By Carl Schreck
Flagged by our Moscow correspondent Matthew Luxmoore: the Yaroslavl man convicted and fined for spray-painting a homophobic slur about Putin on a local police building tells Znak.com that he submitted a question for Putin via SMS reading: "Vova, what's the matter, were you offended?"
President Vladimir Putin has entered the studio just eight minutes late for his 17th Direct Line call-in show.
- By Carl Schreck
Putin's call-in show comes a day after Dutch prosecutors named three Russian nationals and one Ukrainian who will be tried for downing MH17 over eastern Ukraine nearly five years ago. It will be interesting to see if Putin addresses the issue. If he does, we can obviously expect the blanket denial of Russian involvement. In the meantime, there's this:
The broadcast this year kicks off with a long explanation by a moderator on how to submit a question, along with assurances that no question will be ignored.
Putin begins by explaining that although he already knows what is bothering Russians, getting ready for the Direct Line helps him understand better. The moderator begins by asking Putin to explain what the so-called National Projects are.
Putin explains that the goal of the projects is to lift up the economy and, on that foundation, improve the lives of ordinary Russians. Putin explains that they had to raise the VAT in order to improve infrastructure. Talks about methods to raise money in order to fund the projects.