© Michael Klimentyev / Sputnik
On June 15th, Russia's Vladimir Putin held his 15th annual live Q&A session, lasting for four hours. I have condensed the video into a mere 17 minutes - which was quite the hard task! I have left only matters of foreign policy, which I thought would be interesting to the Western audience, as well as a few odd bits and pieces from the programme. The majority of the show dealt with specific internal Russian issues; wages, pensions, roads, rubbish collection, medical care, and specific cases of injustice. The call center opened 11 days before the direct line with President Putin -
it is said that as soon as regional leaders got word of a complaint from their region to the programme, they immediately sprung to action, as if the problem never existed at all.
President Putin is only one man and he can't do everything, so it is important that everyone does their job properly. Unfortunately, that is not the case so far.
One more interesting part of the session that is unlikely to air in Western mainstream media is the heartfelt address of a US citizen, Jeremy Bowling from Arizona, to President Vladimir Putin. It starts @6.54.
Comment: Putin's annual public Q&A session touches on succession questions, foreign policy, and his views on being deceived