Putin Backs Deputy Premier To Succeed Him

MOSCOW — President Putin said Monday that a pliant but relatively liberal protégé would succeed him as president of Russia in the Spring.

Eschewing his fellow KGB veterans and other hawks in the Kremlin, Mr. Putin said he would support Dmitry Medvedev, a deputy prime minister and chairman of Gazprom, the state energy monolith, during presidential elections in March.

"I have known him closely for 17 years, and I completely and fully support this proposal," Mr. Putin said in televised comments after four pro-government parties backed Mr. Medvedev as their candidate. The endorsement all but guarantees that Mr. Medvedev will be Russia's next president, a development that will delight foreign investors impressed by his pro-business credentials. While the move also brings an end to two years of speculation over the identity of Mr. Putin's chosen heir, it also raises new questions over Mr. Putin's future.

"This is not the end of the intrigue," a leading political commentator, Yevgeny Kiselyov, said. Constitutionally obliged to step down, the president was expected either to change the law and stay on or appoint a malleable puppet who could be relied on to step aside should Mr. Putin choose to return. Mr. Medvedev, an early front-runner whose prospects seemed to have tailed off in the past few months, appears to be a compromise choice.

Mr. Putin's blessing appeared to be a rare conciliatory gesture to the West. Instead of opting for an outright hawk like Sergei Ivanov, also a deputy prime minister, Mr. Putin has chosen a figure regarded as more palatable by the West. "Medvedev has the image of a liberal, but he will continue to repress what is left of the opposition," an expert on the Kremlin, Stanislav Belkovsky, said. "He is also a weak figure who does not like to make decisions."

[Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that thousands of pro-independence demonstrators marched through Kosovo's capital yesterday as a sense of euphoria swept the breakaway province preparing to gain statehood early next year. Kosovars, assured of staunch American support and a promise of recognition from all but one European Union country, reveled in hopes that a decades-old dream may be within reach despite fierce opposition by Serbia and Russia.]