Russian President Vladimir Putin said during the annual televised Q&A session on Thursday that he believes that declaring amnesty should not be linked to presidential election.

Axar.az informs citing TASS.

The Russian leader replied to a question submitted through social networks whether the tradition of announcing amnesty after the presidential election would continue.

"Frankly speaking, I don’t know about this tradition. I think we don’t have this tradition," Putin said, noting that "under the law any declaration of amnesty is the prerogative of the parliament, the State Duma, and not the president."