During two hours the President answered several dozen questions.
Accredited to the news conference were more than 500 journalists from several tens of countries, including representatives of 70 TV companies.
The decision to organise such a meeting between the President and the press was prompted by the large number of requests from Russian and foreign media outlets. During the past six months interest has increased further, as was particularly evident after the Russian-American summit in Ljubljana and on the eve of the G8 summit in Genoa.
Because the head of state was unable to meet all the requests for interviews, it was decided to give answers to the questions that interest Russian and international public opinion in the format of an open news conference.