“I’ll think about it,” Mr. Putin said.

Mr. Putin, the former president and current prime minister, certainly did not act like a man in the twilight of his political career. He offered a virtuoso performance at his annual question-and-answer session, seeking to showcase his status as Russia’s dominant leader and his concern for the average Russian.

Mr. Putin, 57, recited statistics and other details from memory on many subjects. The nationally televised session was four hours and nearly 90 questions long, yet it seemed as if Mr. Putin would not have minded had it gone longer.

Asked at one point whether it was time to relax after many years of government service, he grinned and said, “Don’t hold your breath.”

Mr. Putin served two terms as president, beginning in 2000, but could not run for a third consecutive one because of term limits, so he endorsed his close aide Dmitri A. Medvedev, who was elected in 2008 and named Mr. Putin as prime minister.

Despite an economy weakened by the financial crisis, Mr. Putin remains popular, and were he to run for president again in 2012, he could conceivably serve another two terms, through early 2024, when he would be 71.

The current term is four years, but last year, Mr. Medvedev pushed through a constitutional change that lengthened the term to six years. That was widely interpreted as an effort by Mr. Putin to ensure that he could wield power for many years.

On Thursday, Mr. Putin said: “Depending on how the situation turns out with the economy, and in the social sphere, appropriate action will be taken regarding the election campaign of 2012. But it is now only 2009.”

Even so, Mr. Putin repeatedly spoke of his success at stabilizing the Russian economy and reacting rapidly to problems across the nation, from disasters to small personal troubles. “People believe in the positive future of this country,” he said.

To some extent, events on Thursday underscored the unusual arrangement between Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev, who govern in what they describe as a “tandem leadership.” Though Mr. Medvedev nominally has the higher office, he has not held such question-and-answer sessions, and while Mr. Putin was holding court, Mr. Medvedev spent Thursday on a trip to Italy.

Asked there whether he would run for re-election, Mr. Medvedev said he would decide with Mr. Putin.

“As we both have said, we are close to one another, we understand one another and we work together,” Mr. Medvedev said. “We will be able to agree in some way without elbowing each other aside.”

The remarks by both men underscore how they have tended to provide relatively coy assessments of what lies ahead, recognizing that the instant one says he will not run in 2012, he becomes a lame duck.

The political class here regularly searches for a schism between the two, but evidence has been hard to come by. At the same time, Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev have developed somewhat different agendas, as was clear from Mr. Putin’s answers at the Moscow forum on Thursday.

Mr. Putin skirted or ignored issues that have been Mr. Medvedev’s focus, including corruption, economic innovation and human rights. Just last month, Mr. Medvedev delivered a state of the nation speech in which he said that if Russia did not modernize, it would fall far behind other leading countries.

In October, Mr. Medvedev denounced Stalin. Mr. Putin indicated Thursday that he had a more nuanced view, saying that Stalin committed horrible crimes but also won World War II and industrialized the Soviet Union.

“Any historical events should be analyzed in their entirety,” Mr. Putin said.

Mr. Medvedev has spoken out in favor of liberalizing the political system, while Mr. Putin, who has been criticized by opposition parties as an autocrat, has expressed satisfaction with the current structure.

The Kremlin lavishly produced and promoted the forum on Thursday, with officials appealing for questions by phone, e-mail or text message. More than two million were received, more than at last year’s session.

Mr. Putin heard from Irina Tsvetkova in Omsk, who had a question about using government aid for disabled children, and Oleg Trusov in Rostov-on-Don, who sought help so that his 84-year-old aunt could receive housing for war veterans.

Mr. Putin declared that the government was doing everything it could to resuscitate the industrial hinterlands. He addressed questions about the shoddy health care system, unemployment and education. He vowed to defeat terrorism in the wake of a deadly bombing of a luxury train last week.

The presentation at times took on the feel of a review of Mr. Putin’s 2009 achievements. State television sent correspondents to locations around Russia that Mr. Putin had visited to address crises: Pikalevo, a town where the people had protested unpaid wages at their one factory; Tolyatti, Russia’s Detroit, where the massive auto complex is ailing; and a Siberian hydroelectric plant, where scores died in an accident.

From those sites, people were shown live thanking Mr. Putin for his help; but they then often followed up with sharply worded requests for more. Indeed, while Mr. Putin had his share of softball questions, many did not shy from contentious topics.

A woman named Tatyana Gulina from Pikalevo said the town was slowly dying. “We are being forced out,” she said. “What are we to do? How do we survive?”

It was one of many questions that Mr. Putin received about troubled industrial regions. He told her that conditions would improve. And in response to a question about why he visited Pikalevo, he suggested that he would continue such trips.

“I thought it correct and appropriate to send a message to society and leaders of all levels and to tell them that they would be held accountable,” he said.