Moscow last week where he heard from russians across their country. His televised session lasted close to four hours. Next well show you about 45 minutes of that. Mr. Putin, so many people are calling you from different parts of the world. You can actually study the map. Right now, we have a phone call from kiev. Ask your question, please . My name is dmitry, i live in ukraine. Why did you abandon us . We are not all supporters of we go to celebrations of the victory day, but why are we all represented in the same light in the media . Mr. Putin thank you for your stance, thank you for respecting our legacy. You just said that you took part in the internal regimen march in memory. We do not try to present everyone in the same fashion. But again, we are afraid to offer public support. We are afraid to harm you. We try not to interfere in the Domestic Affairs of ukraine. Certainly, we do appreciate your position. Thank you so much for this call. Mr. Putin, what do your friends say on the subject like the man who was helping with the Prisoner Exchange . Mr. Putin we do have a lot of friends in ukraine. You just mentioned one of hem. I became acquainted with him when he was head of the executive office of president kuchma, the first president of ukraine. And his main partner was the current prime minister, head of the executive office of the president of russia in that time. We have good relations. I believe he is the ukrainian nationalist. He does not like that definition. He believes he is an enlightened patriot of ukraine, but his father was a member of the ukrainian nationalist rmy. His father was convicted by the soviet court, he was xiled. That is where he was born. He has his own views on the independence of ukraine. But his system of values are based fundamentally works of ukrainian nationalists. Who penned their works in the 19th century and, if my memory serves me right, mr. Chevnovil, a modern figure. And all of them, i like to emphasize this, all of them preceded from the assumption that ukraine needs to be given ndependence, but to be a federation. It needs to be a federative state. One of them a was a straightforward. He said it was a mechanical centralization, overly centralization would lead to internal conflict in ukraine. At that is exactly what we are seeing in ukraine right now today. He promotes their ideas. He does this in public. He makes statements, he does a lot of research, writes articles on this issue. Some people do not like it, but this is the way he thinks. By the way, those people who promote ukrainian independence and nationalists, they have never seen some of them believe crimea should not be part of ukraine. Everyone said that democracy should prevail, that ukraine hould be a federation, and mr. Medvedchuk shares the same alues. But given this, he promotes very good relations with russia. It may not be a union, but gain, we need to have a good level of economic integration. He says that it is better in their destroy the shared energy, shared infrastructure, inancial, and industrial corporations, the collaboration. It is embarrassing to destroy that, and he believes it would be expedient to have an operation like this. And so, he speaks on the half of the people. He feels that he is in the interests of the people, and he is not alone. We the person said he is in kiev, and commemorates the memory of our forefathers. Mr. Medvedchuk is of the same opinion. He needs and be able he elieves he needs to be able to take care of our legacy. To continue on this topic, we have a question from social media. Kraine celebrated the regime with the eu and mr. Poroshenko quoted, say goodbye to ussia. Mr. Putin no, i did not see hat statement, but yesterday that was reported to me. They reported to me in the vening that he read out that line. The full line is from a verse, goodbye, russia, that has not een washed, and goodbye to russia, the land of slaves and the land of landowners. It is good he knows the russian classic authors, that there is another line. Might the able to hide myself from your eyes and from there in years beyond mountains. He did not like the fear that was there in russia. He wanted to hide away and scape. But first of all, the verse was written in 1841 or 1842, when he was on his way to the caucauses. He was a brave officer. And the areas which now belong to ukraine, they were part of russia. And he is the president of todays ukraine. He wants to go somewhere. Including those areas, which are now part of ukraine, which are called ukraine today. He should be really proud, hed shouldnt really boast about t. Again, the author was in the caucuses. He was moving from one part of russia to another part of russia. He did not actually believe russia. Leave russia. In fact, he is sending us a signal that he does not want to go anywhere and does it in a subtle way. Certainly, he needs to cater to the interests and the scoundrels who are running around with swastikas. That is why he is saying he has interests of his own in russia and doesnt want to leave. Maybe that is a subtle hint. That is my bold assumption. But he just wanted to demonstrate to the voters that he delivers on the pledge that he has given that he is moving oward a civilization, as people say now that he is leading his country toward urope. And again, he wrote, blue uniforms and your obedient to hem folks. Again, blue uniforms. There are so many blue uniforms out there in that world where he is guiding his country. Many more blue uniforms. So he does not need to rest on his laurels. He needs to look around and be alert. We dont have anything against him. I just want to say that i wish you love, i wish you verything. I wish you good luck, especially in those blue uniforms. We have nothing against you. Getting back to the roots of this issue again, we have that drop, we are hoping about it. We have that drop in income nd we are open about it. The average income, again, if you paid it to dollar and not the ukrainian currency, we had 540 u. S. That was the average income in russia, and that was roughly the same in ukraine. They had about 450, 460 for an average income. The situation is not extremely good here, but in april, we have 600 24 u. S. A month. We have 624 u. S. A month. Thats the average salary. In ukraine, it is 251, a threefold cap. Gas prices rose by three times, and there was a bigger increase for individuals and households. If you take heat, water supplies, it was a 200 ncrease. Pensions dropped by 45 . If you take Living Standards and hygiene, people in ukraine might have real problems in terms of getting washed or nwashed. It would be a big question sometime in the future, which country is unwashed. Certainly, you can find lots of examples in russian and krainian literature that would be really, really hit, but i would not do it. I would not use the same kind of language in response to poroshenko, to our shared istory, shared religion. If you want to be a true european, close your accounts close your offshore accounts first, and then talk about the enefits of the people. More than 170 years ago, it was said that ukraine has been fighting, and it has bought to it fought to an edge, to an extremity. It is ukraines own children who has been punished more than the poles. I hope this time in ukraines period, ukraines history will be over. Hello, mr. Putin. I am in arizona, usa. I am your big supporter. I am very prorussian, and i wish you good health and success in your life. My question is as follows. As an american who is here in he usa and sees the racist russophobia, which is largely here in the u. S. , what kind of advice can you give me to help o clear things up . To help my compatriots, the people of great america, to realize that russia is not an enemy . President putin first of all, i really appreciate your call. As head of russia, i know what the sentiments of our people we do not treat merica as our foe. Twice in history, when it was difficult, we joined our efforts and were allies in two orld wars. The russian empire for a certain period of time, helped the United States to gain independence and supported the u. S. Right now, we are seeing russophobic sentiment in the u. S. We believe this is due to the increasing political struggle. I do not want to give you any advice. I just want to thank you for your stance. We know there are a lot of friends out there in the u. S. , friends of russia. My u. S. Colleagues told me, and e also had opinion polls several months ago that say we have a lot of friends out there in the u. S. Unfortunately, we have a hysteric atmosphere in the media, which have an impact. But definitely, there are a lot of people that have respect to the achievements of the merican people and hope that eventually, at relations will go back to normal. We are very much interested in it, both us and the u. S. We have some more questions. Lets continue on that topic. With our guest, we realize that almost everyone here is worried about that, wants to know more. Many discussed international issues, even today. I would like to give the poor floorto the person who is not only worried about russia, but the whole world. So, the editor in chief. I would like to talk about the relations between the u. S. And russia. We have one trend, you entioned it, and the guest also mentioned there is russophobia, and sanctions against russia, but at the same time, we see a Global Demand not only normalizing relations between the two states, but for a major enhancement overall of those relations. Mr. Tillerson in the senate said that since he was appointed to that high position, each meeting with foreign colleagues save him, listening to him, they asked him to enhance relations the middle east, southeast asia, ll say the same thing. Relations should be improved. He was referring to discussing the budget from the state department. There will be a meeting of the g 20 to meet with President Trump. Can we say that you, in the talks, you will put an end to the negative trend, laying the foundation for some positive evelopments . Maybe for some Major Overhaul of our relations which would ake place in the future . What problems is productive and mutually beneficial to cooperate with the united tates . And i think that these matters are of concern not only for us, but many other people in the world. Not only the u. S. Mr. Putin you are an experienced journalist. You know what youre talking about. You know well about these elations with the u. S. Control over nonproliferation, weapons of mass destruction, we are the Biggest Nuclear powers, and it is an extremely important area. It is not just about north korea. It is not just about north korea. It extends to other regions, too. Fighting poverty, fighting negative impacts we know the stance of the white house on the climate deal, but President Trump says he wants to negotiate a better deal. So, we shouldnt Just Exchange barbs. It is a dead end to start exchanging barbs, to offend each other. The u. S. Is one of the biggest countries that emits gases, greenhouse gases. We also need to fight poverty together, as i said. We have given you the figures in russia, but it is a disaster for some of the countries in the world. It is one of the causes for radicalization and for people to become extremists. We need to decide together what to do. We also need to talk to europe, india, china, ask for together with the u. S. , we have worked to resolve the Iranian Nuclear issue. We did come to an agreement. There is a positive track record, and the previous u. S. Administration has acknowledged our contributions. It means we can work together, yes, we can. As for the syria crisis, the middle east issue, it is obvious to everyone that you cannot achieve anything without close cooperation. There are other areas, and we hope the u. S. Can help to resolve the crisis in ukraine. We hope for a constructive approach, constructive contribution. So there are a lot of areas where we need to work together, but it doesnt depend on us solely. We see what is happening in the u. S. , and i would like to repeat this again. It is an apparent sign of an intensifying political standoff. We cannot do anything about it, but we are open to constructive dialogue. I see there are some questions in your sector. There are also people from the machinery construction sector, and we have a guest here. Good day. You speak about the intensification of the domestic conflict in the u. S. And the world. Can you speak up, please . The whole world seems captivated with how the developments are unfolding. I mean the confrontation between President Trump in the former fbi chief, mr. Comey. As tradition, they speak about some russian traces. So what is your assessment of the situation . What can be the consequences . Mr. Putin well, i didnt really know the details of the testimony of mr. Comey, the former fbi director, but i am aware of some of the details he shared. What kind of impression do i have . Number one, mr. Comey said that he believes that russia did interfere into the election process. He doesnt give any evidence. He says we affected hearts and minds, but is it different in the world . The u. S. Always has its propaganda, it always supports ngos, u. S. Leaning ngos. They have an impact on our hearts and minds, because that is an attempt to sway the public opinion, including during the election process. Take the globe, and you can put your finger on any region of the world, u. S. Interests are everywhere. I know this because i talk to leaders of other countries who just say they dont want to have a row with the u. S. But everyone says the same. What do they want . Do they want everyone to bow down to them . We just begin out openly. It is not a secretive, covert operation. We just speak out. He says there is no evidence in us meddling with the count of the votes. Well, luckily, it is good that he doesnt go so far as to blame us for that. He says he wrote a memo of his conversation with the president , and then he leaked it the a a friend of his to the press. It looks really strange when you were caught when you memorized your conversation with the Supreme Commander in chief and link it to the press. Does it make him any different to mr. Snowden . Mr. Snowden is a human rights activist who defends some kind of position. Is this some kind of persecution . We would be ready to offer political asylum to mr. Comey if he was persecuted in the u. S. We have many questions in our call center, and i am transferring to italia. Our call center is overloaded. We have 2 million calls coming in. We received 100 video calls, social media is overloaded. We are being watched and listened to by thousands of people. I give up floor to one of them. Hello . Please, ask a question and introduce yourself also, please. Good day. I am from i am very much worried about the coal problems. When the coal is being loaded openly, it poisons the air. How can we live in that place . Mr. Putin there is nothing good about it. We just need to look toward what kind of procedure is used. Perhaps that is what we usually do, loading and unloading is done somewhere inside the city or near it. We need to understand who the owner is and what kind of technology is used. Please repeat your name and location . Primorsky region. Mr. Putin what is the name of the port . In the city of nakhodka. Mr. Putin we will look into it. We will ensure the interest of the people and the environment to minimize the harm. What is your name . Andre, my name is. Mr. Putin andre, together we will take a look and please share your contact information, and we will reply on whether any affects will be made, any measures will be taken. Thank you so much. And now, lets take a look at what people write on social media with the hastag. I am watching the direct line. Please, put on your screen some of the most recent comments we have received. I am reading and watching it. It is so nice to see that people really care. The opportunity to be heard. Thank you for that comment of yours. If we could put up one of the video calls. Our editors are trying to reach out to the live users. For now, lets look up what people are writing on social media. Lets see the comments again. They have started to talk about the key events. I dont think that there is anything more important than the fight against corruption. That is something which is undermining the country in many questions. It is your turn. One more important topic that worries our audience, and it is the socalled optimization of the healthcare services. One of the questions that is being reached out, we are about to listen to him. We are in the kolsky peninsula, immersed in the major mind. As the locals say, the biggest problem today is the disability of healthcare services. The lack of healthcare services, and that is a good example. There is the building of the local hospital which was not finished. It was supposed to be filled with the doctors of the new hospital, but it is now standing abandoned like this. The locals complain that there are no doctors. This is daria, she fights a severe disease. She lives on painkillers. She asked us to present her question. We could not turn a blind eye to her, and we are here to give her an opportunity to ask the president. Good day, mr. Putin. My name is daria, and i have been diagnosed with a four degree cancer. Initially, no one felt it was cancer. Now i do not have any more time. People were treating not my back, they were doing some massage, some injections, and that led me to come to hospital with severe bleeding, where the doctors told me that it was cancer. Mr. Putin, we do not have enough specialized doctors. Which would save people, make correct forecasts. We do not have the nursery here, we do not have the cardiology center, we do not have anything. We go to another city in proximity. We have to go there if we need any medical help. If we need some major operations, if we need any kind of diagnosis, we go there. It is the only place. It is difficult to do this. It is quite expansive, not affordable for many people. I do not ask for myself, i just want some help for my people, for the citizens of my town. Please, help us, help us to rebuild the hospital. Help us to restore what we used to have, ambulances quite often fail to get people to the hospital in time. We have only one hospital, only one center. A friend of mine, her mother died because the ambulance failed to get her on time. She had a heart attack, and she was 50 years of age. People are truly worried about their lives. It is not one case. Many times, we spoke to the hospitals officials. We want to live, we want to survive, we need your help. Please help us. We need our town to have everything it needs, and it should be restored. Thank you. Mr. Putin daria, i do not talk about my personal matters or my personal life, but looking at you, i cannot say, the same happened to my father. He was diagnosed with back pain. They did some massage, and my mom told me, your father cries because of pain. Then i moved into a different hospital. He had the same what you had. Even at this stage, they found and that was a long time ago that they found an efficient medication. He died not because of the illness which he was diagnosed with. I urge you not to remain hopeful and certainly i will try to look into how we can help. As for health care issues, and i would like to tell you and all those who are present, all our russian citizens, we know that there are always selfcare issues and patients are critical of what has been done in health care. Again it happens everywhere. Take in the u. S. , it was because the former president did an overhaul of that area, he passed a law that was under fire in the newly elected president and a repeal. The same happened in europe. In our health care, we have been introduced to outpatient and two new centers. We build 2000 new institutions in two years so we do have progress. There is a problem that we dont have specialists in specific niche areas. That is why we still have these lines. They are not physical but they are electronic ones. It is no better. We need to switch it to a new type of registration and it has to work. Most importantly, it needs to be accessible. It needs to be accessible to people. In your case, we will definitely look into it. I dont know the reason why they closed down the hospital. They used a major mining city, people work under different circumstances. They need special attention. They use some formal criteria that is not too far away, but people we either need to restore the previous one or completely construction of this one and help he personally. Good luck to you. We wish you good luck, thank you. Get better. On all the questions we have some which read that people ask you to help to get to the military. They want to go and serve the country. That wasnt the case before. Well get back to that person later. Lets continue our conversation with the guest. Thank you in the studio we have young professionals. That is an organization that works from the standards for professional confidences. He is 19 years old but he is he has already received a medal in the Hotel Business as one of the European Championship stages. Mr. Putin i would like to thank you for supporting our movement. We will like to have circulation with small or mediumsized businesses. How desk can you give us advice can you gives advice . We care about our future. Are we going to see the increase of the assignment age . When . Mr. Putin i will reply to your first question. Despite all the issues that we talked about and there is the speaker who raised this earlier. It has still been moving forward and what is really good is we have a lot of hightech companies. We have the experts worth 7 billion. It used to be zero. You need to look at those fast growing companies. Number two, our majors need to have a network of smes, as a network that would support them. They need to rely on our own hightech smes and not look abroad. You need to use these in an to Strike Partnership with smes. Going back to your previous question. There is a debate on raising the age. For us to decide the experience some experts believe it is the only way for us to decide the experience of other countries including our neighbors like ukraine and almost other countries like belarus, not to mention europe we cant compare ourselves with europe because of life expectancy. Again, our neighbors stick to the decision while we dont. We have to be cautious but has a decision been made . No it hasnt. Unless we do it, the level of pension support will fall down. The pension size would go down. The structural changes the amount of people working who would have to pay for the Pension System would shrink. The amount of nonworking population will increase. The amount of working population would shrink. This is the reality we are facing that we have to take into account, but again we need to take such a decision in a prudent way. Ive got to mention one more thing. Many of the retired people refuse to retire. They want to work. Even now, people find problems when a person is 52 years old and he is refused to be given a job. A woman, she is 42 and no one wants to take her up and she is worried about her future. Putin it is a different issue. We need to provide for requalification of people that we need to retrain people could we need to ensure mobility so that people can move from one region to another, not just to move and live somewhere as bums. We need to provide for housing. We need the Infrastructure Ready for this. Multilayer and multifaceted issue. We know this. We know that our special Company Towns where this issue is most important. We do have a blueprint but we need to step up our activities. The diamond problems to the age some people complain that they cannot go and serve because they are too old. One person had that kind of question. Many people want to go and serve want to go to the military. People now giving their all. Good afternoon. We are here near the mother of russia monument. As we know, the remnants of 35,000 people. Today, people give their allegiance, those who are to serve in the separate tribune unit. Is it very famous unit. Ith a very rich history it is an honor to serve in that unit. We see over the water help people come and say the words in front of the flags, the Russian Federation and of their unit. We see their parents, their friends, their relatives coming from different parts of our country. For them, it is a bit sad but a wonderful moment. Can you please introduce yourself and your future soldier . My name today my son takes his oath. Im coming from the moscow region. The decision to serve was taken by my son, himself, after study for two years, Medical College in moscow. He decided to go and serve his homeland. I am a retired soldier and i can only say that i support his decision. This is in direct line with the president. You can ask any question, anything you want. I am an officer retired officer and im interested to know more about our military. I would like to ask one thing. Know more about our military. What are the lessons which our military have learned when working in syria . What are the future of our troops there . Putin first of all i like to congratulate you and your son. On taking that oath. That is a big occasion for every man, every russian citizen. And especially for those who decided on their own to serve the people of russia. Back to your question. What were the lessons . There are several aspects to it. Well, it is really good for our defense sector. We deploy stateoftheart systems and we were able to see how it works in practice. Then we used those lessons to adjust them. We knew these were effective weapons, but we needed to test them when we saw how they performed, it is a different story. We had those Company Representatives out there in syria. They see how the equipment performs, they make adjustments and theres a lot of research. To perfect those weapons. As for the Russian Troops, i would say this is very positive. Invaluable experience. The Russian Troops have now achieved a new level of combat readiness. We have deployed newly set up units. As for our plans, we want to ensure a peaceful political process between all of the parties in the short term. In the short term, we want to strengthen the combat readiness of the Syrian Forces. And then use that basis, and the navy base. So that the Syrian Forces themselves will operate on their own. And thanks to aviation, it will provide that support to fight terrorist groups. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service for Cable Television companies. And is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. The wall street journal reports that federal republicans could vote as early as next week on legislation that would repeal parts of the Affordable Care act after gop aides and others say they anticipate the bills text to be released later this week. The wall street journal says the Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell is intent on keeping pressure on Senate Republicans to move quickly on a bill and the push for a vote could backfire. Some conservative and centrist republicans have expressed concern about the emerging shape of the bill. They can only afford to lose two votes within their party in order for Vice President pence to service the potential tiebreaking vote. You can read more at wsj. Com. Thete democrats are Holding Senate floor to protest the fact that republicans have not held hearings on their health care replacement. The speeches began at 5 30 p. M. This afternoon and are expected to go as late as midnight tonight. Richard blumenthal, lets listen in a bit. Hearings, not for their own sake, not for our sake but more the individual recovering from Substance Use disorder thanks to medicaid for the mother of a little girl with a preexisting condition, terrified of how theyll pay for her care and able to do so now because of the Affordable Care act. The woman who is at a planned parenthood clinic today receiving mammogram and other cancer screenings and other Preventive Health care testing as well as men because of the coverage provided to them by medicaid and the Affordable Care act. Defunding planned parenthood, risking again preexisting conditions, eliminating the guarantee of essential Health Benefits like Maternity Care is a war on Womens Health care and a disservice to our democracy done in secrecy. My colleagues across the aisle may succeed in gutting our Nations Health care system, but the people who pay the highest price will be ordinary americans, working men and women and their families who now have health care coverage, to prevent more serious illness and who will now go without it. Secrecy