Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to hold the customary year-end news conference.
"The president’] annual press conference is scheduled to take place," Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS.
"We will decide on the format depending on the epidemiological situation," Peskov stated.
Putin’s year-end news conferences began to be held in 2001. There followed an interval from May 2008 to May 2012, when he held the prime minister’s seat. After Putin’s election for a six year-term in 2012 the practice of such events was resumed.
Putin’s first news conference in 2001 was also the shortest one (one hour and 35 minutes), while the longest so far (four hours and 40 minutes) took place in 2008. Starting from 2004 all of Putin’s news conferences at the end of the year lasted for no less than three hours.
More than 500 journalists were accredited at Putin’s first news conference in 2001. Later, the audience at the annual event grew bigger steadily for several years, from about 700 in 2002 and 2003 to 1,364 in 2008. All news conferences during Putin’s third presidential term attracted no less than 1,250 correspondents.
