Putin defies protests by promoting old guard

Russian President Vladimir Putin defied calls Tuesday to bring fresh faces into top jobs by shifting his old ministers into the Kremlin and putting a key lieutenant in charge of the giant state oil firm.

The swift reassignment of half a dozen officials to the Kremlin one day after they formally left the cabinet of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev appeared a defiant message to protestors not to expect radical change in Russia.

Top Putin ally Igor Sechin will also run Rosneft after using his cabinet seat to engineer three global tie-ups to help the technological-lagging firm exploit vast reserves in the Arctic, from which it can grow into one of the world's top firms.

The move highlights an understanding by Putin that Russia's economic fate still revolves closely around its biggest energy companies despite repeated attempts to diversify into other sectors of growth during his 12-year rule.

But the reshufflings also underscored Putin's continued refusal to look outside his team of most trusted advisors and amplified concerns that his old guard was not prepared to fully embrace much-needed economic reform.

"It is obvious that the presidential administration intends to run everything," former Kremlin advisor Gleb Pavlovsky told AFP.

"Any talk of modernisation now is laughable," added Higher School of Economics professor Yuly Nisnevich.

Putin's election in March was preceded by months of protests on the streets of Moscow over the prospect of the ex-KGB spy extending his domination of Russia until at least 2018 with the same clique of top officials.

His aides seemed sensitive to the criticism and had promised in the two weeks since Putin's May 7 inauguration a complete government overhaul design to shed the ruling party's image of bureaucracy and waste.

But Putin issued a decree on Tuesday announcing that he was taking on no less than seven top former ministers who were not included in Medvedev's new government.

They are: former economy minister Elvira Nabiullina; ex-health minister Tatyana Golikova; ex-natural resources minister Yury Trutnev; ex-education minister Andrei Fursenko; ex-communications minister Igor Shchyogolev; and ex-transport minister Igor Levitin.

Former interior minister Rashid Nurgaliyev -- a hate figure for the opposition over harsh crackdowns on protests and cases of police torture and other abuse -- was given the job of deputy head of the national security council.

The ruling party meanwhile rammed a bill through parliament hiking fines for joining illegal protests to more than three times the annual wage.

United Russia lawmakers needed almost every one of their votes to pass the measure 236-207 in the first of three readings. The opposition voted against it and at least five people were arrested during a morning picket of the building.

There has been a marked similarity between the lightning pace at which Putin's third term was starting and his quick imposition of authority more than a decade ago.

Putin's 2000-2008 presidency witnessed an unprecedented centralisation of power that saw huge companies come under state control and the regions lose the right to elect their own top officials.

Medvedev came in as Putin's replacement with the more liberal credentials of an attorney who made economic modernisation his mantra and was quickly embraced by the West.

But critics have accused the current premier of failing to deliver on his promise and he picked up a membership card on Tuesday from United Russia after famously criticising the group at the height of his four-year presidential term.

"In my opinion, the party has every opportunity to preserve its leading position for a long time to come," Medvedev told the group at its Moscow party headquarters.