MOSCOW, October 21 (RIA Novosti) - President Vladimir Putin will hold his fifth live televised phone-in question and answer session with the people of Russia October 25, Russian state-run TV Channel 1 said Saturday.
It said 18,000 phone calls, text messages and e-mails have already come in to the message processing center, adding phone-in questions this year will be handled by 120 operators.
Russian President Vladimir Putin answered 60 questions in a nearly 3-hour-long question-and-answer session September 27, 2005.
Six of the questions addressed international issues, whereas the remaining 54 concerned domestic problems. Residents of nine cities and one village in Russia and Latvia posed their questions to Putin via a live television linkup. Others phoned in and sent SMS messages.
During a previous Q&A session in December 2003, Putin took 69 questions from the public. In 2001, he answered 51 questions in a call-in session.
