The new government and the Kremlin lineup that were announced last week appear to have strengthened the role of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and demonstrated President Dmitry Medvedev’s constraints in personnel policy, while diminishing the influence of some of the security services hardliners who opposed Medvedev’s elevation as Putin’s successor.

Putin transferred some of his presidential aides to the cabinet, including his powerful deputy Igor Sechin, while leaving some allies on Medvedev’s staff. Some prominent siloviki were removed from their posts, including Sechin’s ally Vladimir Ustinov as justice minister, Viktor Ivanov as presidential assistant, and Nikolay Patrushev as the Federal Security Services (FSB) director.

In order to enhance the role of his new cabinet, Putin brought some of his presidential aides with him: presidential administration head Sergey Sobyanin became a deputy premier and head of the cabinet's staff; presidential aide Igor Shuvalov became first deputy premier for economics; presidential administration deputy head Sechin became deputy premier for industry; and presidential protocol chief Igor Shchegolev became minister of communications and media.

These appointees were mostly Putin choices, and very few people close to Medvedev have been promoted to key government and presidential staff positions – Alexander Konovalov as the new justice minister, and Konstantin Chuichenko, a former Gazprom official, as Chief of the Presidential Auditing Department. The appointment of Igor Shuvalov as first deputy prime minister has also been attributed to Medvedev, who reportedly wanted Shuvalov as his Chief of Staff. However, Shuvalov has been a Putin loyalist, and was chosen by the latter to carry the heaviest load of duties, in order to relieve Putin of small managerial tasks.

Two important aspects stand out in this reshuffle.

One is that continuous constraints are placed on Medvedev in running the country. All important decisions continue to be made by Putin and his men. Putin even reorganized the Cabinet by setting up a narrow governing body – the Presidium--filled with his men, comprising the defense and the foreign ministers. This is a sign that Putin will continue to have a final say on national security issues. Medvedev would not even hold the weekly government meetings Putin used to chair every Monday. Medvedev’s role appears to be evolving; he is in search of a mission, while Putin continues to be where he has always been – in a commanding position of power.

The other important aspect is the nearly full annihilation of the siloviki camp within the Kremlin. Although the new Presidential Chief of Staff Sergey Naryshkin is a classmate of Putin from the KGB foreign intelligence school, he is more of an economic administrator than a security man. The removal of Igor Sechin and Victor Ivanov from the Kremlin (the latter became the chief of the Drug Enforcement Service), the retirement of former FSB Chief Nikolai Patrushev to an inconsequential position of the Secretary of the Security Council, as well as the removal of Vladimir Ustinov from the Justice Ministry, have left the siloviki without an operating platform and a leader to coalesce around. Sechin’s elevation to deputy prime minister having no control over the government staff has made him a publicly accountable official with a heavy portfolio. Putin and Medvedev appear to have decisively dealt with the feuding security clans, and signaled that the siloviki would no longer exercise much political influence.

Although the Russian stock market showed increasing confidence in the Putin-Medvedev Dream Team, growing by almost ten percent in one week, a few serious questions remain. How will the key decisions be made in the country? Why does Medvedev continue to exercise so little freedom of movement, while the spotlight remains on Putin, who seems to be relishing the role of the super powerful prime minister? Would the current constraints on Medvedev gradually be lifted, allowing him to take control of policy making, or would the current strange arrangement continue till the next presidential election in 2012? Would Medvedev bolt from the arrangement that makes him look like a figurehead president? Will the present power sharing arrangement between Putin and Medvedev help ensure stability and economic growth, or would it prove destabilizing and crippling for the country’s ability to make difficult decisions? How will the demotion of the siloviki affect both economic and foreign policy in Russia? What is the idea behind creating a separate Federal Agency for the CIS Affairs? Is Russia signaling that it no longer considers the CIS affairs “foreign”?

Eric Kraus, Nikitski Russia/CIS Growth Opportunities Fund, Moscow:

This week’s question appears to stem from a belief widely held by the Western press, which actually sharply contrasts with the political reality – the notion that either there is, or there will be, some fundamental rift between the new president and the prime minister.

The great mystery about the Putin succession is why anyone should find anything mysterious about it. It is obvious that with his enormous popularity, total control over the Duma, and uncontested authority over all power factions, both within and outside of the government, Vladimir Putin will remain as the central figure in Russian governance for the foreseeable future. Dmitry Medvedev is undoubtedly grateful – it is most unlikely that without Putin’s support, he would not be able to assert – much less to maintain – control over various economic and power elites.

It has long been obvious that although Putin intended to engineer a formal handover, equally, he would retain the ultimate power to oversee the implementation of the “Putin Plan,” aimed at re-establishing Russia as a major global power in both economic and diplomatic spheres. This is a multi-decade undertaking, and there is good reason to expect him to remain in place for the duration. Putin thus intends to retain control of the fundamental levers of Russian policy – the security services, foreign policy, and the major lines of economic development. He does not intend to become bogged down by the day-to-day details of major domestic policy reform and procedures that are vitally necessary to maintain the impressive momentum seen over the past eight years.

Dmitry Medvedev has been anointed president in order to oversee this fundamental judicial and administrative reform program. He has his work cut out for him. His background as a professor of law and a judicial theorist is particularly well-suited to the task of reforming legislation and improving the singularly poor Russian court system. Beyond this, he is tasked with the root-and-branch reform of the dysfunctional Russian administration, a gargantuan undertaking which will most likely require decades to complete. Nothing in his career to date suggests that he will strive for absolute power. Certainly, Vladimir Putin rarely errs in his assessment of people, but in the very unlikely event that the new president should suddenly decide to follow a radically different policy line, Putin’s control over the largest faction in the Duma would quickly curtail any such ambitions.

Over the past year, we have been repeatedly warned of the fierce power struggles brewing within the siloviki clans, and of the extreme turbulence which would necessarily accompany any handover of power. And yet, despite all the massively-overused Churchillian metaphors, the succession has proved to be more reminiscent of modern-day Switzerland than of the False Dmitris and the murdered Tsars. The “commentariat” can now be relied upon to seek revenge by endlessly speculating about the crisis brewing between Medvedev and Putin.

Ethan S. Burger, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Center, & Scholar-in-Residence, School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C. :

I continue to be mystified by the extent to which prime minister Putin and his closest allies act as if their hold on power is indeed weaker than it seemingly appears. Perhaps they know something that escapes most of us.

Officially, United Russia won 64.1 percent of the votes in the December 2007 State Duma elections. Putin’s anointed successor Dmitry Medvedev won more that 70 percent of the votes cast in the March presidential elections. The Russian economy continues to grow (albeit unevenly). Russian troops paraded in Red Square to celebrate the victory over Nazi Germany in a manner aimed to please those Russian citizens nostalgic for Soviet times. Western Europe is increasingly dependent on Russian energy supplies. One might think that the Russian leadership should be “dizzy with success.”

There has been some rotation of the leading cadres -- some have lost their positions entirely, while others have been given new assignments. The significance of these changes is hard to gauge. Some specialists confidently assert that president Medvedev has agreed to be essentially a modern day Mikhail Kalinin, and that the assumption of some of his favorites has no real significance.

According to an op-ed entitled "Putin’s Gulag Stability" by Oleg Kozlovsky, Coordinator of the Russian youth movement Oborona and a member of Other Russia's Executive Committee, published in the Washington Post, "Hopes that Medvedev will ensure a more open future are misplaced.” He discounts speculation that the president has an “interest in liberalizing Russia,” since he “understands that any such attempt would lead only to a loss of control, which would present a fatal threat to the corrupt heights of power in Russia.”

One cannot help but feel that there is something wrong with this picture, and I am not certain that Medvedev will not change over time. If Putin was entirely confident in his ability to retain power, he would not seemingly be threatened by the activities of Gennady Seleznev, Gary Kasparov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Vladimir Milov, and Boris Nemtsov. There would be no reason to keep Mikhail Khodorkovsky in prison. The government is not about to collapse, Russia is not Zimbabwe.

President Medvedev may be biding his time. He does not necessarily share prime minister Putin’s world view, and is waiting for major economic and foreign policy setbacks before asserting himself. He may not believe that repression of civil liberties makes the state stronger. Indeed, he may have more ambition than most attribute to him. It is unlikely that he will be able to dispose of Putin in the same manner President Boris Yeltsin changed his prime ministers. Perhaps, Putin’s well-known deal with certain oligarchs will prove to be the model for the separation of economic and political power, made possible by strengthening the rule of law and property rights.

Few Soviet specialists expected Nikita Khrushchev to push aside Georgi Malenkov in 1957, or for Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin to topple Khrushchev in 1964. They were too busy looking at who was standing next to whom in photographs published in Pravda and Izvestiya to pay attention to the failure of the leadership to address the citizenry's needs.

Professor Stephen Blank, the U.S. Army War College, Carlyle Barracks, PA:

These are all good questions that would require more than 600 words to answer. And in many cases, any answer would be speculative, such as whether Medvedev would bolt from this agreement. Nevertheless we can try to make sense of what is happening.

In regard to foreign affairs, Moscow has evidently concluded, as it had before, that there is no point in dealing seriously with Washington in the waning months of George Bush’s tenure, and before it knows with whom it will be dealing in 2009, or before that team has any clear idea of its Russia policy. The emphasis will be on Kazakhstan to firm up control over CIS energy, on China to ensure its cooperation on global and regional (Far East and Central Asian) policies, and on Germany to promote the steady encroachment of Russian economic power into Europe.

It is clear that Moscow sees no military threat (otherwise it would not have left the CFE treaty), but is determined to block the U.S. policies on a host of issues, though not on the entire bilateral relations agenda, such as a new START treaty.

The siloviki were demoted largely because of their domestic antics and rivalries, which indicated the real nature of the regime, and threatened to become a public and international scandal. It cannot be definitively established that they control the foreign policy agenda, and Anatoly Serdyukov and Sergei Ivanov have remained in charge of the defense portfolios.

The most obvious point is that Putin is emasculating the presidency, apparently with Medvedev's compliance. I do not understand why it is so difficult for many observers to grasp that Putin likes power and its benefits (the billions that he is now worth), and trusts nobody to run Russia as effectively as he does. Indeed, Medvedev may have been chosen because the siloviki went too far.

In any case, we still see an autocratic neo-Tsarist regime, which has no intention of giving up either its monopolization of the political process or control over property. Certainly it is not evolving toward democracy or a true Rechstaat (a state ruled by law where officials are truly accountable to the law if not to the people).

In as much as foreign policy is an interactive process, we need to see that Russia is waiting for moves or reactions from its partners, whether it can intimidate Europe into not giving Ukraine and Georgia MAPs or whether the attacks on Russia's democracy deficits will stop. In the meantime, it is consolidating its positions. Among those positions are the CIS.

Putin’s remarks at Bucharest that Ukraine is not a state, the new flare-up over the Black Sea Fleet, and perhaps the new CIS agency, confirm that this ruling elite sees the CIS as a temporary aberration that will work itself back to Moscow's control. Since these states are now the battleground of East and West, detente with the West is less likely if Russia continues to insist that these states in fact have a diminished sovereignty, which it should oversee.