Dmitry Peskov, the presidential press secretary, told RIA Novosti that no address is planned this year. In comments to TASS, he said Putin would speak "when he considers it appropriate." Peskov did not give reasons for the decision.

Putin also skipped the address last year. The current omission makes this the first time in modern Russian history that a president has not addressed the Federal Assembly two years in a row.

Article 84 of the Constitution obliges the president to address parliament annually on the state of the country and the main directions of domestic and foreign policy. The Kremlin has not explained on what grounds Putin is not fulfilling this provision.

Putin delivered his last address on February 29, 2024, shortly before his election to a fifth presidential term. It was the 29th address in modern Russian history and the 19th for Putin as president. In it he spoke about confrontation with the West, the war in Ukraine and arms buildup, and announced the delivery to the troops of the first serial heavy ballistic missiles "Sarmat." It later emerged that this was not true.

Before 2025, Putin skipped the address twice. In 2017 he delivered the address in early 2018 during his election campaign, but there was no second address in 2018. In 2022, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin explained the refusal by saying events were developing very dynamically and it was "a bit difficult" for him to determine concrete plans for the near future. Before last year's cancellation, Peskov said several times that the address would take place and that preparations had already begun.

In August, the Kremlin said it was considering the possibility of abandoning the president's annual address to the Federal Assembly. Putin's representative in the State Duma, Garry Minkh, said that in conditions of war with Ukraine, the long-term planning usually built into the head of state's address had become less relevant, and many decisions had to be taken situationally. To begin with, he said, the constitutional requirement to deliver the address annually could be removed.

Peskov said at the same time that preparations were under way for Putin's so-called big press conference and "direct line," which usually take place in December.