Putin will change titles but still hold the reins of Kremlin power.(Inside Track)(Vladimir Putin)(Brief article)

On December 10, Russian President Vladimir Putin named his 42-year-old Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to be his preferred successor in the 2008 presidential elections. That would seem to mean a virtual lock on the Kremlin's top political slot for Medvedev, who is little known in Russia or the West. But what the endorsement really means became clearer a week later, on December 17, when Putin announced that he would be willing to accept the position of prime minister in a "new" government headed by Medvedev. "If Russian citizens express their confidence in Dmitry Medvedev and elect him president of the country, then I will be ready to head the government," Putin told United Russia Party delegates in Moscow.

For months political observers inside and outside Russia have been wondering whether Putin, who has been reinstating much of the old Soviet structure and clamping down on all dissent, would dispense with ...