MOSCOW, March 19 (Itar-Tass) — The most influential official of Vladimir Putin’s Cabinet, Igor Sechin, will not remain in the government, the Vedomosti claims. The fuel and energy complex may be supervised by Rosatom’s Director General Sergei Kiriyenko.
Igor Sechin will not be working at the government of Dmitry Medvedev, four officials of the federal level told the Vedomosti. “Medvedev and Sechin will not be able to work together well, this is of no doubt. They hate each other,” one of the officials said. The Medvedev-Sechin combination is not possible, another said, “Sechin is too influential, he would dominate in Medvedev’s Cabinet, which is unacceptable for the latter.”
Sechin is close to Vladimir Putin. They have been working together since the Mayor’s Office in St. Petersburg from early 1990s. Over all this time, Putin has been considering Sechin’s opinion and trusting most important cases to him.
The officials do not know where Sechin is leaving to. Some say he may return to the presidential administration, others believe he may join some major state-run corporation, like Gazprom, or that he may run a law enforcement authority.
Vedomosti refer to the officials as saying that the most probable successor of Sechin is Sergei Kiriyenko: thus the Kremlin will demonstrate it changes the ideology – that of state capitalism for liberalism.
It is not easy to call Kiriyenko a follower of liberalism, FBK’s Partner Igor Nikolayev said. “He is rather a manager who reaches an objective.”