User:Malick78/Medvedev

Med vs Putin power struggle

"Many liberals regard Mr Medvedev as a temporary figure designed to soften Russia's image and appease the West, while Mr Putin, the current prime minister, continues to pull the real strings of power."

He's often viewed as the junior partner in the political double act running Russia - junior to prime minister Vladimir Putin. As one leaked US embassy cable put it, Medvedev "plays Robin to Putin's Batman".

Steve Rosenberg: "Most Russians view their prime minister - not their president - as the person who is really running Russia.

Dmitry Medvedev has traditionally been seen as "Putin's man"; many here expect him to hand back the keys to the Kremlin to Mr Putin at the presidential election in 2012.

But there have been signs that Mr Medvedev is becoming a more independent figure; there are rumours of differences between the prime minister's and the president's teams. They are difficult to confirm; information about the inner workings of the political "tandem" running Russia rarely leaks out."

"Many still consider Mr Putin, now the prime minister, the most powerful man in Russia, however, and Mr Putin has hinted that he may seek to return to the Kremlin during presidential elections in 2012."

"Analysts said his appointment made it more likely that Mr Putin would run for a third presidential term in 2012 and said it showed that Mr Putin remained Russia's most powerful politician."

Other dodgy Russian stuff

"Mikhail Kasyanov, who served as prime minister under Putin and has since joined the opposition, says Putin once told him that it was Khodorkovsky's funding of the parliamentary opposition without Kremlin approval that had sealed his fate. He spent two years in a jail in Chita in the Siberian far east, some of it in solitary confinement, before being transferred to Moscow in 2007."

"The rumour first came to public prominence in 2008 when a Russian newspaper, owned by billionaire oligarch Alexander Lebedev, quoted a source as insisting the story was true. Mr Lebedev shut the newspaper down soon afterwards claiming it had not been a commercial success though many suspected the real reason was to appease an angry Mr Putin."