Putin names new Cabinet in seeming effort to shift power
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin named his new Cabinet on Monday, bringing in loyalists from the Kremlin in what was seen as an effort to shift the center of power to his new place of work.
He also left some prominent ministers untouched, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
President Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s handpicked successor who was inaugurated last week, quickly approved the appointments. Putin named the hawkish Sergei Ivanov, once seen as a top candidate to succeed him as president, as one of his deputy prime ministers, a step down from his position as first deputy premier.
Putin’s predecessor, Viktor Zubkov, was named a first deputy prime minister. The other first deputy premier is Igor Shuvalov, a top policy aide in Putin’s Kremlin.
The most striking change was Nikolai Patrushev’s dismissal as head of the KGB successor agency, the Federal Security Service. He was replaced by one of his former deputies, Alexander Bortnikov.
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