The Putin Puzzle Revisited

Putin’s presidency is constitutionally mandated to end in 2008, when new elections will be held. But who is Putin’s Putin? He succeeded Boris Yeltsin by promising that, whatever purges he might carry out, Yeltsin and his family would be shielded. Yeltsin was old, ill and alcoholic, and Putin’s offer must have seemed one he couldn’t refuse. Putin is young and vigorous, and has no reason to put his fate in the hands of a successor or successors who wouldn’t be able to guarantee his lifelong immunity even if they wanted.
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Putin Succession Doubts Unsettle the Kremlin

So far, Mr Putin is resisting all efforts to persuade him to amend the constitution and stay for a third term as president of Russia, but the pressures are mounting, The Financial Times report. He has promised to remain closely involved - but Russia has never been run successfully with a division of power in the Kremlin. So the speculation remains.
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The Kremlin’s Shell Game

President Vladimir Putin believes that a powerful, state-controlled energy sector is the key to Russia’s economic future, even if he has to strong-arm foreign investors to get it. But trampling property rights is risky. It is as likely to leave Russia an economic pariah as an energy superpower.
Read more in today's New York Times editorial...

Vladimir Putin: Turning Energy Into Power

In 2006, Putin made use of high oil prices to bolster Russia's position in the world to the strongest it has been since the cold war ended more than 15 years ago. "He's using the advantage of high oil prices to make Russia count," says Margot Light, a Russia expert at the London School of Economics.
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More Than 2,000 People Rally Against Government In Moscow

AP reports that more than 2,000 people held a rare anti-government rally in Moscow on Saturday, accusing the Kremlin of growing authoritarianism and protesting against electoral law changes. Authorities, however, pulled opposition activists off buses and trains, and hundreds were detained to prevent them from attending, activists said.
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The Litvinenko Affair: Murder Most Opaque

In its Friday's special report, The Economist wonders "what a poisoned Russian agent tells us about the way that Russia is governed". Its article offers a broad range of theories of who was responsible for Litvinenko's death but the main point remains that at the end of the day, the 'who' may not be as important. What is important, however, is that the case actually caused the controversy it did and put Vladimir Putin's Russia under microscope.

As seems to be the case, Litvinenko was nothing like the Russian KGB superagent turned human rights advocate as he was portrayed in Western press. "He was not really a spy, as he has been described, but worked for domestic units of the FSB, one of the KGB's post-Soviet successors. He has been labelled a defector; but few people took the information he brought out of Russia when he fled to Britain seriously." However, his death marked a drastic turn in how Russia is viewed. The war in Chechnya, the contract murders in Moscow and the consolidation of power in the hands of the siloviki is one issue. The fact that the perception exists that the Russian state actually could reach out and assassinate a British citizen in London (regardless whether it actually was the case) is another issue. But the two cannot be viewed in vacuum. Litvinenko's murder was the proverbial last drop that caused the bucket to overflow. All of the sudden, the situation in Russia cannot be ignored any longer. Putin's shortcomings that were conveniently pushed aside when we wanted Russian oil and natural gas and when we wanted to be part of Moscow's stock and real estate market boom are suddenly exposed as never before.

In Russia, A Secretive Force Widens

The Washington Post reports: Russia's intertwined political and business elites are increasingly populated with former intelligence agents who have personally proved themselves to Vladimir Putin. At the same time, Putin has spearheaded the regrouping and strengthening of the country's security services, which had splintered into a host of agencies after the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991. In recent years, the Federal Security Service has emerged as one of Russia's most powerful and secretive forces, with an increasingly international mission. Putin headed the agency in the 1990s.
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The Spy Who Knew Too Much

The investigation into the death of a Russian dissident in London heats up and sheds an ugly light on Vladimir Putin's rule - The Time Magazine published a seven-page article on December 10, examining the multiple facets of the Litvinenko affair.
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Russian Billionaire's Bitter Feud With Putin A Plot Line in Poisoning

The Washington Post has brought a commentary in its Saturday edition revising the bitter relationship between Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian billionaire, and Vladimir Putin. Following the death of Alexander Litvinenko, Berezovsky found itself once again at the center of the international intrigue. His personal relationship with Putin makes the recent events even more bizarre.

Berezovsky was prominent among the group of Russian oligarchs who helped the then relatively Putin win the presidential election in 2000 following the abrupt abdication of Boris Yeltsin. However, Berezovsky was not able to retain his prominent position in the inner cercle of the Kremlin that he held under Yeltsin. Berezovsky's supporters claim that he was appalled by the increasing consolidation of power in the hands of Putin and his former KGB colleagus. According to Putin's followers Berezovsky unhappily discovered that the new president would not be his puppet like the ailing Yeltsin.

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