Russian President Vladimir Putin is giving his eleventh annual major news press conference in Moscow on Thursday, December 17.
During the several-hours-long presser, the Russian president answers uncensored questions from journalists, and reflects on the outgoing year.
The live question and answer format press conference was first held in 2001 and hosted over 500 journalists. Since then it continued annually until 2008, when Putin became Russia’s prime minister. It was reintroduced in 2012 after Putin was re-elected president; last year's presser lasted 3 hours, 10 minutes.
