Putin fields more than 70 questions within 4 hours 26 minutes

MOSCOW. Dec 19 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has answered more than 70 questions from fellow Russians during his end-of-year press conference, which this year was combined with a Q&A session and lasted 4 hours 26 minutes.

The special military operation, as predicted by statistics of incoming questions, was among key topics of Putin's communication with citizens and journalists today.

This year Russians were less keen on international topics, most questions about foreign policy were posed by journalists, mainly from Western media outlets. As the Q&A session showed, Russian citizens are more preoccupied with domestic issues: the economy, social sphere, transport, and healthcare.

This was the third time Putin held his press conference and Q&A session in a hybrid format by combining the two events.

The current program, titled "Results of the Year with Vladimir Putin," was one of but not the longest in the past years. The longest Q&A session was in 2013, when Putin's live chat with citizens lasted 4 hours 47 minutes and questions exceeded 3 million towards the end of the program. In 2008, Putin set the record of speaking with journalists answering more than 100 questions in four hours and 40 minutes.

This time Putin's Q&A session received around 2.5 million questions.