President-elect Vladimir Putin's first act after his election at the weekend has been to retain Marshal Igor Sergeyev, the man responsible for the conduct of the Chechen war, as defence minister. By holding on to Marshal Sergeyev, who has passed retirement age, Mr Putin has indicated that major changes elsewhere in the cabinet may be unlikely.
Marshal Sergeyev's career in the Chechen war has, as the liberal daily Segodnya put it yesterday, turned him into a "prisoner of the Caucasus". He now appears likely to stay in his post while hostilities continue.
Political insiders have put forward another, Byzantine, hypothesis saying that Marshal Sergeyev is being kept for the moment so that he can become the main scapegoat if the war in Chechnya takes a turn for the worse.
Having declared the war to be over and Russia to have won on February 29th, Marshal Sergeyev faced almost instant embarrassment when an hour or so after his announcement 85 paratroopers were killed in battle by Chechen rebels. Ever since, there have been rumours of his imminent dismissal. The fact that he was unable to keep his promise to end the war before polling day in the presidential election was also considered a black mark against him in Mr Putin's estimation.
After a meeting in the Kremlin yesterday, Mr Putin asked First Deputy Prime Minister Mr Mikhail Kasyanov to tell other cabinet members to relax as it was likely to take him up to a month to complete details of his first cabinet.
Mr Kasyanov is currently the favourite among political pundits for the post of prime minister. Another fancied candidate is Mr Alexei Kudrin, a deputy finance minister.
Many claim that Mr Putin's choice of prime minister will give the first clear indication of his economic policies. Diplomatic sources in Moscow believe that under Mr Putin, who likes to keep his fingers on all the control buttons, the new prime minister will simply be expected to do what he is told.
Results of a poll released yesterday showed that 49 per cent of Russians wanted Mr Putin to adopt a new political course to steer the country away from the chaos of the Yeltsin era.
In southern Chechnya yesterday, a 1,500-strong rebel force defied Russian troops for the third day as clashes flared in the separatist republic.
