Worries about the crisis dominate the nearly 700,000 questions submitted to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ahead of a televised call-in show on Thursday.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that the word “crisis” appears four times more often in questions compared with previous years, while inquiries about international affairs have declined.

Peskov said the shift was understandable considering the fact that the country was mired in the economic crisis and Putin, as prime minister, no longer had the portfolio of international affairs that he had as president.

Despite the large number of submitted questions, Putin has read an “overwhelming majority” of them, Peskov said, Interfax reported.

The live question-and-answer show, “A Conversation with Vladimir Putin: the Sequel,” will air at noon on state television. It will be the eighth hosted by Putin, who last year answered 80 questions in three hours and eight minutes.