Putin himself would have remained President except that Russia's constitution prohibits him from holding that office for three consecutive terms. Instead, he has graciously offered to serve as Prime Minister to the new President and will run for that purpose in December's parliamentary elections as a member of the United Russia Party. Given that party's virtual lock on the Duma (Russia's Parliament) which elects the Prime Minister, there is no doubt whatsoever that he will succeed. Having secured control of the majority Party, the Duma, the security and defense ministries, and even the President himself, Putin will have succeeded in making himself Russia's newest strongman.

No-one should expect significant changes under in Russian policy under Dimitri Medvedev. He has been a close associate of Putin since he was a young man of 25 years.

Medvedev was educated as a lawyer and was an assistant professor in law at Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) State University from 1990 until 1999. From 1990-95 he served as a legal adviser to the mayor of St. Petersburg and was an advisor to Vladimir Putin's external affairs team on behalf of the city council.

In 1999, when Putin was selected to be then-President Boris Yeltsin's Prime Minister, Medvedev was named Deputy Chief of Staff to the Russian Cabinet. One month later, when Putin took over as acting President, replacing Yeltsin, he was appointed the President's Deputy Chief of Staff. He ran Putin's successful 2000 presidential election campaign. As a reward for both loyalty and victory he was appointed Putin's First Deputy Chief of Staff and was elevated to Chief of Staff in October 2003 and First Deputy Prime Minister soon thereafter.

In 2002 Medvedev was named chairman of the board of the natural gas monopoly Gazprom. Gazprom produces a reported 90 percent of Russian gas. It is responsible for 8 percent of Russia's GDP and 20 percent of the central government's revenue. Gazprom is also a major source of gas for the European market, accounting for an estimated 28 percent of that continent's supply in 2005.

As First Deputy Prime Minister, Medvedev led efforts to improve key sectors of Russias economy, including housing and health care. He oversaw a number of major initiatives in agriculture and education and helped restructure Putin's relations with Russia's powerful economic oligarchs who made fortunes in the Yeltsin years.

During the recently concluded presidential campaign Medvedev promised to diversify the economy. He promised to improve schools, build housing, encourage business and change the tax codes in ways to encourage household and social stability, including offering tax breaks for retirement savings, charitable donations and education and medical costs. He said that he favors a healthcare system that allows more choice, and challenged bureaucracy and corruption in the government. All of this is a clone of Putin's own domestic agenda.

On foreign and national security policy, Medvedev is also likely to continue to follow Putin's lead, and not just because he needs Putin's support to remain in office. In truthm Medvedev and Putin see eye-to-eye on all the issues. Medvedev will continue to renew the projection of Russian power around the globe. He will resist attempts by other Eastern European countries to join NATO and will strenously oppose the deployment of American missile defence components in Poland and the Czech Republic. He will also take steps to re-assert Russia's influence over the those states that formerly made up the Soviet Union. Most dangerous of all, he will continue Russia's recent policy of staging aggressive strategic bomber patrols and ballistic missile tests. He will maintain or increase an already inflated level of defence spending and will continue to modernize his country's military. Given his history with Gazprom, he can be expected to use energy as a strategic weapon. This will pose a significant challenge to those countries that have become so dependent on Gazprom to satisfy their energy needs.

All of this is to say that de facto power in Russia remains firmly in the hands of Vladamir Putin even if - for the time being at least - de jure power passes into the hands of one of his most trusted protégés.

And if all goes according to what appears to be the plan, that power will likely remain in Putin's hands for a long time to come.

Originally posted on IntelligenceDigest.ca March 5, 2008.