By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, May 13, 2008

SOCHI, Russia, May 12 -- Vladimir Putin, Russia's new prime minister, named some former Kremlin aides to the country's new government Monday but left key ministries in his cabinet unchanged.

Sergei Lavrov, the debonair but prickly foreign affairs minister who has clashed with U.S. officials on a host of issues, retains his post, as does Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.

"We aimed to increase the efficiency of the state machinery and its personnel," said Putin, who presented his new cabinet to his successor in the Kremlin, President Dmitry Medvedev.

At the same time, Sergei Naryshkin, a former government chief of staff and Putin ally, was named head of Medvedev's Kremlin administration.

The appointments suggested that both the Kremlin and the government will be peopled with Putin allies, adding to speculation that Putin will be the bigger wheel in what Medvedev calls the country's new "tandem."

Among the most intriguing appointments was that of Igor Sechin, a former Kremlin deputy chief of staff, to the post of deputy prime minister. Sechin, a reputed former KGB agent who has worked with Putin for close to two decades, has long been regarded as one of the Kremlin's hard-liners.

As chairman of the state-controlled oil company Rosneft, Sechin oversaw the acquisition of assets from Yukos, the bankrupt company once headed by the now-imprisoned tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Sechin's brief includes energy, suggesting that state control of the oil industry will continue to grow. He was one of four key officials moving from the Kremlin to Russia's White House, home to the cabinet.

Former first deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov, once regarded as a possible successor to Putin, was demoted to deputy prime minister. The outgoing prime minister, Viktor Zubkov, was kept on as a deputy prime minister, one of five people holding that rank.

Another Putin ally, Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Federal Security Service or FSB, the domestic successor of the KGB, was named head of the Russian Security Council. One of his deputies becomes the new head of the FSB.

The only notable omission from the new cabinet was Leonid Reiman, the former telecommunications minister, who has been tainted by allegations that he had secret holdings in the sector he oversaw.