Putin Nominee Speaks to Lawmakers

Zubkov is a close ally of Kremlin officials Viktor Ivanov and Igor Sechin, according to a report issued last March by the Center for Current Politics in Russia. Ivanov and Sechin are part of the so-called siloviki -- former military and security services officials who people the government and state-controlled companies.

Ivanov and Sechin helped Zubkov move to Moscow from St. Petersburg, where in the early 1990s he had served under Putin on a foreign affairs committee in the mayor's office. In the 1990s, Zubkov and Putin were also neighbors in a community of country homes outside St. Petersburg where much of Putin's circle first coalesced.

The Center for Current Politics described Zubkov as a "henchman" of Ivanov and a "protege" of Sechin. He has "preserved the reputation of a man from the president's private circle," the report said.

Zubkov's son-in-law, Anatoly Serdyukov, is Russia's defense minister.

"They are all buddies," said Olga Kryshtanovskaya, head of the Department for the Study of Elites at the Institute of Sociology in Moscow.

Zubkov was born in the Sverdlovsk region of central Russia. A Communist Party functionary, he graduated from the Leningrad Agricultural Institute in 1965 before being named general director of a group of collective farms.

In 1999, after Putin became prime minister, Zubkov became deputy minister of taxation for the Russian Federation. That year, he ran for governor of the Leningrad region but got only 8 percent of the vote. He later became deputy minister of finance and chairman of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, the body in charge of stamping out money laundering. In that post, he largely avoided publicity.

"Sometimes the press sounds a note of disappointment because, they say, the Financial Monitoring Service cannot boast any high-profile cases," he said in a rare interview this year with the Russian weekly Argumenty I Fakty. "I am convinced that this is good. . . . Our purpose is to quietly force dishonest participants out of the market and make the financial sector more transparent."

Despite his closeness to Putin and his ties within governing circles, Zubkov had no political profile until Wednesday. In that, he may fit into a political scenario about which there has been endless speculation here: A caretaker president would keep Putin's seat in the Kremlin warm until he returns in 2012 or sooner. The constitution would allow Putin to run again in 2012, or earlier if the successor president quit early.

"I believe Viktor Zubkov is an ideal candidate for the presidency," said Victor Ilyukhin, a Communist deputy in parliament, speaking on Echo Moskvy radio. "He will be 66 soon, so it looks like the Kremlin is implementing the scenario of Putin coming back in 2012. The fact that he is not young is very important: They have chosen somebody who definitely will not have any ambitions, whereas if there had been somebody younger he might say, 'Well, why can't I work for a second term?' "

With the Kremlin's ability to control the critical broadcast media and marginalize any opposition, Putin's choice for president is likely to coast to electoral victory next March -- even if he is little-known now. The president's choice will also be able to exploit Putin's huge popularity.

"Perhaps he is the successor, but he doesn't look like a successor," said Boris Makarenko, an analyst at the Center for Political Technologies in Moscow.

He said Zubkov's term as prime minister could also be a sop for Ivanov and Sechin if Putin chooses someone outside their circle for the presidency, because they would be working with a prime minister who is in essence their man. Or, he said, Zubkov may indeed be the presidential place-holder, allowing Putin to return, which is reportedly the fervent wish of the siloviki.

"Until further notice, either scenario is possible," Makarenko said.