Russian President Vladimir Putin will address the nation in a live televised broadcast on Thursday, one day after a Dutch-led investigation accused four Russian-backed separatists in the 2014 shooting down of a passenger jet over east Ukraine.

During a lengthy Q&A session, Putin is expected to deny accusations that Russia supplied the separatists with surface-to-air missiles, a charge that will raise tensions with the west, and deflect claims that Russia is harbouring suspects in the case.

The questions will come as part of a carefully choreographed run of televised theatre, where Putin will answer questions ranging from pensions reform to Nato expansion, all purportedly submitted by ordinary Russians. Putin’s main goal this year will be to reconnect with Russians after a marked drop in his popularity ratings and signs of growing discontent and protests across the country.

Television newscasters will cautiously press him on the economy, regional protests and foreign relations. Dozens of regional governors will be made to sit before television cameras and sweat through the three- or four-hour broadcast, waiting in case Putin addresses them with a question. Lucky Russians who manage to petition the president on-air about a neglected playground or withheld salaries may find those issues resolved by the end of the broadcast.

This year’s Q&A comes as Putin’s approval rating has dropped below 50% according to state-run polling agencies, among his lowest numbers since he first became president in 2000. Pollsters have focused on economic causes for the malaise: a five-year rise in Russians’ pension age and stagnant wages among Russian workers who have been told the country’s economic crisis is over.

Although the numbers would be enviable for western leaders, the Kremlin has leaned on pollsters to prop them up further. When polling agency VTSIOM showed that just 37% of Russians named Putin as a politician whom they trusted, it caused a minor scandal. The following week, the pollster changed the wording of the question to name Putin specifically, and the numbers rose.

The televised Q&A has become a mainstay under Putin over the past two decades, purporting to provide a direct line for Russians to bypass their local bureaucrats and appeal directly to the national leader. Margarita Simonyan, the head of the state-backed television station RT, or Russia Today, wrote on Twitter: “The direct line is the time of sweet hopes for the downtrodden and insulted of this enormous country and of trembling for those degrade and insult them.”

A key topic will be the spread of protests across the country this year. In Yekaterinburg, liberal protesters came out against plans to turn a local park into a church. People in Ingushetia protested against a land grab by neighbouring Chechnya. Moscow journalists led protests after an investigative journalist was slapped with drug charges. And in northern Russia, environmental protestors have demonstrated for a year against a dump.

As local officials and ordinary Russians increasingly find themselves at loggerheads, the Kremlin is expected to solve community issues.