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Russian City Postpones Planned Power Cuts for Putin's Q&A Show

The western Russian city of Tver has postponed plans to cut power supplies to local residents for maintenance work, rescheduling blackouts to accommodate President Vladimir Putin's upcoming “direct line” live question-and-answer broadcast on April 14, the local energy utility said.

All power shutdowns that had been planned for Thursday will be bumped to Friday, TverGorElektro said in an online statement, adding that the power utility has also expanded the list of the city's districts that will be left without electricity on Wednesday.

The rescheduling is “due to the live broadcast of April 14, 2016 of the 'direct line' with President Vladimir Putin,” the statement on Tver energy utility's website read.

Putin is scheduled to answer Russians' questions on domestic and foreign-policy issues starting at noon on Thursday. It will be his 14th annual “direct line” program, which is traditionally broadcast on main state-run television networks and radio stations.

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