Putin moves 3 in Cabinet shake-up

MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin promoted two top Kremlin officials yesterday, both mentioned as possible presidential candidates in 2008, and brought the tough governor of an oil-rich Siberian region to Moscow to be his new chief of staff in a Cabinet shake-up.

Putin first gave Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov the additional post of first deputy prime minister yesterday, -- a move he said was designed to bolster efforts to improve Russia's military.

At a Cabinet meeting shown on television station NTV, Putin said Ivanov's appointment was aimed at overcoming a lack of coordination among ministries.

Putin also named his chief of staff, Dmitry Medvedev, to become first deputy prime minister.

Both Medvedev and Ivanov have been seen as potential candidates to run for president in 2008, when Putin is constitutionally prevented from seeking a third term. Speculation had been high recently that he would try to increase both men's visibility.

In a third move, Putin named Sergei Sobyanin, governor of the oil-rich Tyumen region of Siberia, as his new chief of staff.

Boris Makarenko of the Center for Political Technologies think-tank described Sobyanin as a ''strong, tough figure" and a politician in tune with Putin.

Analyst Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Moscow Center said the moves were a surprise. ''The reshuffling was done in Putin's trademark secrecy -- nothing foreshadowed it," Lipman said. ''One can suggest that this may be the pool of Putin's possible successors -- both Medvedev and Ivanov have been named as possible successors," she said. ''One can suggest that they are being given a chance to prove themselves in these high jobs."

Putin said Ivanov's appointment followed a meeting last week in which ''the participants expressed anxiety about the problems the Defense Ministry had been meeting in realizing its plans for future development."

''These problems are connected with non-agreement of the activities of various ministries and departments," he added.

The post-Soviet Russian military is hobbled by cash shortages and has suffered a series of embarrassing accidents, including the 2000 sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk and last summer's accident involving a mini-submarine off the Pacific Coast in which Russia had to call on Britain and the United States to send underwater vehicles to help in the rescue.

Russian media said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov, who will retain his post as Putin has more than one deputy, said he backed the president's decision. Last week Zhukov was named head of a committee to promote the bid by the Black Sea city of Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

''The president explained everything correctly: the responsibility for implementing of national projects is on the government," Zhukov said, according to Interfax and RIA-Novosti news agencies. ''Everything must be concentrated in the Cabinet."

Putin also replaced two of his envoys to Russian regions. Sergei Kiriyenko, the envoy to the Volga region, will be replaced by former Bashkortostan prosecutor Alexander Konovalov and Far East envoy Konstantin Pulikovsky is being replaced by Kamil Iskhakov, former head of the city administration in Kazan.