Analysts have different views on how long this Cabinet will last. Alfa Bank strategists say that Putin has decided to maintain the status quo ahead of the elections. Yaroslav Lisovolik says that the new Cabinet will see Russia through the elections and the successor's first years in power.

This year marks an important anniversary. In 1807, the Russian Empire and the young American Republic agreed to establish diplomatic relations. Soon after, Russia's first envoy, Alexander Dashkov, arrived in Washington, and John Quincy Adams traveled to St. Petersburg. Since this modest beginning, our relations, at their best and worst, have borne out de Tocqueville's prophecy that America and Russia are "marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe."

The Russian president is at the top of his game, and he knows it. He is powerful, popular and the master of a country that he has led from bankruptcy and despair to wealth and power in the space of less than eight years. Two days earlier, he had regally replaced one obscure prime minister with another.

The charm and appeal of "Project Successor" has played a cruel trick on minds already inclined to substitute stories for analysis. (Actually, this is convenient for the Kremlin: even as it implements one policy, everyone assumes it's implementing an old plan which has already been played out. Back in 1999, the implementation of the Sucessor scenario was greatly facilitated by the fact that everyone assumed Yeltsin would repeat what he had done in 1993 or 1996.) If we assume that the Operation Successor theory is true, Putin's latest appointment decisions seem absurd; but he is pursuing a different plan. Whatever else may be said of it, Operation Successor is a scenario that entails handing over power to one person. This may have been the plan, back when the Russian president's capacities were smaller and not as dangerous.  But if we picture such a scenario now - having a successor to Putin's entire role, not just the office of president, is likely to be a disaster for Russia, and perhaps for the successor himself. President Putin is far too sober and sensible to court Lenin's fate. Here's another statement about  techniques: "We should all think about how to structure the systems of governance and
administration so that they are more appropriate to the pre-election period and prepare the country for the post-election period." What does Putin mean by that?

To the processes of economic globalization, information revolution, the political awakening caused by the latter and the activation of the masses in their billions, to the reduction in the ability to control processes in the sphere of national security and to the old ruptures between the Islamic and Christian worlds, between rich and poor countries and the North and South, it is possible to add another two extremely critical contests - for energy resources and a contest
between the countries of the old capitalism, with a liberal-democratic orientation, and the more dynamic countries for which more of a state capitalist and a more authoritarian model of development are characteristic, between the
countries of the old West and the new, the embodiment of which are the countries of South East Asia, China and Russia.

Russia is outpacing the US, UK and Germany in securing its population’s long-term economic and environmental future, according to a new study. Economists at Germany’s Allianz Insurance and Dresdner Bank have ranked Russia sixth in an 18-country index of «sustainability of fiscal and ecological development», ahead of the UK (placed seventh), Germany (ninth), and the US (17th).

Putin confounded expectations by picking financial-crime investigator Viktor Zubkov to take over from Mikhail Fradkov as Prime Minister. Zubkov is head of the Financial Monitoring Committee, responsible for overseeing the movement of money in Russia. Speaker of the Duma Boris Gryzlov hastened to give assurances that Zubkov would be confirmed without a hitch this Friday.

Standard & Poor’s rating agency’s research says that Russia is not as vulnerable as its neighbors to the international liquidity crisis. However, it is unlikely that the rating would grow sooner than financial markets stabilize, and than the activities of rating agencies themselves are reconsidered.

Speaking ahead of a desperate White House attempt this week to secure extra time for the strategy before the patience of the American public runs out, the US military commander in Iraq declared that uneven but substantial progress had been made this year. He said that Iraqi forces were now able to «shoulder more of the load» and al-Qaeda had been thrown «off-balance», particularly in Anbar province.

The official visit today by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the first by a Russian president to the UAE, signifies the extent of growth and sophistication the country's foreign diplomacy has achieved thus far. The keenness shown by both countries to strengthen ties in all areas reflects how each nation appreciates and understands the important standing of the other.