Little about international affairs

In the live show, Putin spoke very little about international affairs, just briefly praising Belarus and Ukraine for their economic integration efforts with Russia.

"If Ukraine joins these integration processes in this or that form, this will be a powerful and important incentive for preserving whole industries of the Ukrainian economy and will help improve competitiveness of a lot of our enterprises," Putin said.

With regards of Belarus, he said Russian budget loses 3 billion U.S. dollars a year, as the state-owned gas giant Gazprom sells gas to Belarus duty free.

He avoided, however, giving a direct answer about the state of Russia-Japan relations only saying that he was fond of judo.

Meanwhile, the prime minister denied the assassination plan on the "traitors" when was asked about the July's spy row with Washington.

"Russian security services do not use such methods," he said. However, he added traitors had no future and called them "swines."

Avoiding sensitive topics

In his longest question-and-answer session, Putin also spoke tough about opposition, particularly Michail Khodorkovsky, Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov, accusing them of being money and power thirsty.

Putin called Khodorkovsky a thief and reiterated that the former oil tycoon must be imprisoned for tax evasion and money laundering.

Meanwhile, he avoided comment on dismissal of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, saying it is up to the president to direct the regional governors, and it is the governors' responsibility to build working relations with the president.

"This question should be directed not to me but to the president," Putin said. "The decision was made because of a conflict between the Moscow mayor and the president."

Luzhkov, Moscow's mayor for 18 years, was dismissed by an order of President Dmitry Medvedev after he refused to step down voluntarily in late August.