Vladimir Putin's phone-in with Russia – as it happened

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/16/russia-putin-direct-line-live-updates

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Vladimir Putin embarked on his annual discussion with the nation through his “direct line” press conference. The now well-established tradition on Thursday saw the Russian president take questions on topics from Ukraine and the Iran nuclear deal to rural transport and the sale of milk to primary schools.

A record 3 million questions were logged, with the first hour dominated by the economy as Putin fielded questions on the impact of western sanctions, later moving on to Russia’s relations with its neighbours and the wider world.

Key lines

One of two questions on milk came from a British man, John Kopiski, who moved to Russia in 1992 and became a dairy farmer. He asked about regulated milk prices.

Alexey Venedikto from Ekho Moskvy also quizzed Putin about Nemtsov’s murder from the studio. But there we no high profile guests to top Edward Snowden who appeared last year to ask a question on Russia’s mass surveillance policy.

In tweets

Shaun Walker live-tweeted the event in English:

And we rounded up the best of the online reaction as the discussion developed:

And you can watch the whole event dubbed in English here:

The social media build-up to the event focused around the perceived power of Putin as a president, as a Vine clip re-surfaced showing him see off US president Barack Obama in a stare down – the two have previously been compared on the basis of their animal preferences.

And to keep people entertained through the proceedings Meduza created a game of Putin bingo, with key words that include “sanctions”, “Crimea” and “Nemtsov”.

Готовимся! pic.twitter.com/I7isel2dtr