Putin to give press conference on December 19

MOSCOW. Dec 18 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin will give a press conference at noon on December 19, 2013, the Kremlin press service reported on Monday.

The venue of the press conference and the admission procedures will be reported later.

The accreditation and briefings department of the press service and information department has begun accreditation procedures for the press conference.

Accreditation requests are accepted only in electronic form on the websitewww.kremlin.ru, http://news.kremlin.ru/accreditation/request/11 until noon on December 1, 2013.

Contact phone numbers: (495) 606-38-59; 606-30-63; 606-50-17.

On October 8, presidential press officer Dmitry Peskov said Putin would give a large press conference in December 2013. “It will take place in the second half of the month [December], after an address [to the Federal Assembly],” Peskov told reporters.

It will be the ninth “big press conference” for Putin. In the years of his presidency, Putin has already given eight such press conferences, and each of them was longer than the previous one.

Presidential press conferences, as a rule, are not strictly limited to specific issues. The president is asked questions about domestic and international policy issues, as well as personal questions.

Various media organizations, both print and electronic send their representatives to the “big press conferences.”

In the meantime, the “big press conference” is not the only form of communication between the Russian president and the country’s citizens. In October 2012, Peskov told reporters that Putin intends to continue holding live “direct lines” with the people of Russia. Last year, the “direct line” was rescheduled for the spring. “Bearing in mind the climate conditions, we will switch to a routine in which direct lines will be conducted during the warn season, not in a season when your ears and legs freeze,” Peskov then said.

In the course of his tenure as president and prime minister, Putin held 11 “direct lines.” The last one took place on April 25, 2013.