It appears to me that they want to appoint a hand-picked successor. If he is in the position prior to election time, then he is an incumbant, and sure to win the election. Plus, the dissenting opponent will have very little power or influence. The intriguing history of Russia's powerful elite continues!

Wow!

Not to take the thunder away, but let me add another one as we close the work week. This comes from some very respected sources.

Serbia has been pressured to likely sign off claims on Kosovo in exchange for "joining Europe." I heard this after forwarding this article to my contacts on that subject:

http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11484838

MOSCOW. March 24 (Interfax) - Russia will support Serbia in talks on the status of Kosovo, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"We are convinced that any decision [on Kosovo's future] should be negotiated and not forced. However, unfortunately, Serbia is not playing a particularly active role in these talks," Lavrov said at a State Duma session devoted to the European Council's convention on the prevention of terrorism on Friday.
Serbia's stance "could have been firmer and were it to become so we would support it," he said.

Not to accuse the owner of the blog of wistful thinking... but his bit of 'news' is about 8-6 months old - similar rumors have appeared and were dismissed on russian-language media sites
:

http://www.prognosis.ru/
http://www.globalrus.ru/
http://www.apn.ru/

times and again over the last year. There is nothing new or exciting in this piece and I would take it with a very big grain of salt - Putin proved many times that he never repeats his own moves - and to monkey Boris Eltsin... I think he won't do it if only to prove his difference from his predecessor.

Answering Janetta:

Dear Janetta, may be the rumors have existed (actually the newspaper Izvestia had a short article on this subject from a week ago) – these were rumors from someone else, or random websites. Gazeta.Ru or Kommersant.Ru didn’t dare to post it. I’ve learned this news from a reliable source, which is as close to the grove as it can be. So I am simply taking the pride of saying something I’m very confident in (rather than re-telling other outlet’s rumors). I don’t think resignation of Putin will have to do anything with being like or not like Eltzin. I think it’s an independent move, scheduled by the Kremlin elites for the reasons mentioned in the post.

Thank you for reading RussiaBlog,
Yuri

I can provide fact based testimony on how the Russia Blog editors bust chops on the content of articles.

In my recent Russia Blog article, I was taken to task on my view of Georgia being politically more akin to Belarus than Russia. Upon substantiating this view, my article was posted.

That's responsible journalism as opposed to the prejudgmental kind, which might have automatically rejected my view without giving it a fair hearing.

Yuri

Who will take over Putin's position and will that person run for office?

Awesome blog.

Answering Andrew Waller:

Dear Andrew,

It is very hard to say who is going to take the place of Putin. No one really wants the job (believe it or not, it’s underpaid and very stressful), and there are no good prospects. I’m sure Kremlin will come up with a brand new person right before the elections, but for right now the only possible “candidate” is the defense minister Sergei Ivanov. His image got a little bit spoiled with the stories of tortures in the army draft divisions, but there are no other real candidates. Zyuganov (communist party) will run as always, and as always he will get 15-20 percent of the vote from the elderly and few younger people. Ultra-nationalists might have a shot at 5% or so.

When someone gets 80 or 90 percent in countries like Russia or Belarus – these numbers are real. If you were Russian (as I am) and went voting (as I do – now in Seattle Russian consulate), you would be amazed with the absence of “normal” people and recognizable names on the ballot. Those choosing between the communists or any name they recognize – would always go with the latter.

Thank you for reading the RussiaBlog!
Have a great week,
Yuri

Dear Yuri,

I have three comments about your prognostication about Putin resigning.

First, I find the comments of "Michael Averko" really weird, distracting and deserving of deletion. Who wants to read this apparent wacko's comments about Serbia and Georgia when the topic is Putin's succession? I think you ought to edit better.

Second, you yourself seem guilty of the same lack of focus. I fail to see what motivates your comment about Putin's electoral margin being a "real" number, this has nothing to do with who will succeed him. What's more, having raised it, I fail to see why you would ignore the fact that the only reason there are so few "normal" candidates on the Russian ballot is because the lazy, cowardly Russian people don't demand anything better. They're not innocent victims. Furthermore, as between Zyuganov, a proud Communist, and Putin, a proud KGB spy, I don't think the choice calls for an 80 or 90 percent landslide as you say. Both represent Russia's failed past, and it's the KGB who actually killed more Russians than Hitler, the Communist party just gave the marching orders (that's to say nothing of all the churches the KGB blew up and atrocities like the murder of Polish officers in the Katyn forest).

Third, if you want to be responsible, you ought to at least recognize the possibility that you are wrong. Most importantly, just because Putin is no longer technically the president of Russia does not mean he is not controlling the country. The far more important question than who is nominally the president is whether he will continue to pull the strings, and your comment says nothing about this.

Yuri, there has been some talk in the past about Medvedyev, by both Peter Lavelle and the guy who's name I don't remember in the Moscow Times. I was so suprised that Peter concured with the MT's writers view that it made me sit up and take notice.

One of the points made is that Mededyev seems to be getting the high profile PR treatment from the top, i.e. being seen at public events and seen to be at the seen of disasters shortly after they happen...

Then again, Putin's a spook and he has been known to pull rabbits out of hats. I wouldn't put it beyond him to to play a slight of hand and certainly have some backups (because accident do happen)...

I haven't really followed Putin's various administrative (promotional) appointments, but I don't think it would be beyond the realm of reason to anoint a 'non' russian as his successor. That would send one hell of a strong signal both domestically and internationally. Well, that's my wild guess before I go to bed!

P.S. Did you see BBC's Question Time in Moscow on Thursday 30th (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/4760222.stm)?
I missed most of it but Kasparov was REALLY annoying and arrogant in a way that I just can't see the Russian people voting for even he had millions of dollars behind him. FM Grigory Karasin wasn't very good from what I saw either...

Kim,
I may not always agree with Averko, but he has strong facts to support his arguments, and he successfully predicted the electoral drubbing the Orange Government recently endured in Ukraine.

We see Russia Blog as a forum for publishing reports and commentary that usually are not found in the mainstream English-language media. This is why we publish Averko.

Our comments policy is that we only delete or edit comments that are spam, obscene, racist, libelous, or have nothing to do with Russia/Eastern Europe. Otherwise we let anyone have their say.

Thanks for reading!

As a friend of Michael Averko, I find it absurd for "Kim Zigfeld" to seek censoring a perfectly valid contributor.

Zigfeld has no substance in his diatribe against Mike.

Keep up the great work Russia Blog.

I don't always agree with Mike as well Charles.

Averko is very appreciative of Ganske's spirit of inviting different views.

Averko notes that unsubstantiated name calling words like "weird" and "wacko's" don't legitimately win over a given view.