Any such protests should be legal, he said, and should not be motivated by personal ambition — an oblique reference to the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, who wants to run for president. Mr. Putin also took a dig at the Western reporter asking about the protests, saying that the very question suggested support for the protesters.

Despite regular denials by the Kremlin, there were obvious signs that the call-in program was canned, not least the absence of really tough questions and the seemingly easy opportunities for the president to score points with the public. The show also featured some of his favorite topics like the development of the Arctic.

One studio anchor served Mr. Putin an easy lob at the beginning, by saying that people wanted to know about the future. Russia will hold a presidential election in March 2018, and although Mr. Putin has yet to declare his candidacy, he seems at times to be campaigning.

He lent a sympathetic ear to all those who voiced their problems on the show, including a person with cancer, a teacher with an abysmal salary and a woman whose house was slowly rotting after a flood. When people living near a large Moscow garbage dump complained that it was out of control, before promising a solution, Mr. Putin said, “I can smell through the screen.”

In virtually every case, he expressed wonder that the problem had not already been solved, given that the federal government had allotted money for whatever issue was raised, and he promised to address the problem — and the perpetrator — at once.

“What you just said is very strange,” he told one woman who said she was being made to pay to apply for relief from a flood last May that damaged her home. Mr. Putin suggested that the local governor pay her a visit before the end of the day.

The woman grinned, relieved. Later, she told a Russian newspaper that an unknown man had materialized at her door, vowing that the flood relief money had just been deposited into her bank account.