It has been an annual ritual of Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia: The President holds a wide-ranging, marathon news conference in December, making a somewhat choreographed show of openness to questioning and demonstrating his command of an array of topics.

But after a series of military setbacks in his war in Ukraine, with Russia’s casualties mounting and its economy faltering under sanctions, Putin has decided to skip the tradition. Dmitri S. Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, did not offer a reason when he told reporters during a daily briefing on Monday that the event would not take place this month; he held out the possibility that it might be rescheduled for the new year.

Putin first held the yearend news conference in 2001, two years into his presidency. He suspended the practice after becoming Prime Minister in 2008, but resumed it after returning to the presidency in 2012.

The last time he opted out of the event, as President, was in 2005. Often stretching to four hours or more, the December news conference has been one of the few times during the year when reporters outside the Kremlin pool, including foreign correspondents, get the chance to directly question Putin — if they are called on.

But the Kremlin has also asked reporters ahead of time what they might be inclined to ask Putin. The ranks of journalists in Russia who are not subservient to the government are thinner than at any time since the fall of the Soviet Union, and this year the government criminalised criticism of the war or the military.

Independent Russian news media have all either shut down or moved abroad. Even so, it would have been possible for either a Russian or an international reporter to detail some of the setbacks in Ukraine and to ask Putin embarrassing questions about them — live on national TV.

Peskov noted that Putin “regularly speaks to the press, including on foreign visits”, but such exchanges are limited to the pool of reporters.

(New York Times News Service)