July 20 Vladimir Putin claims that Konstantin Romodanovsky is assigned chief of the Federal Migration Service.

Since Romodanovsky’s appointment to the Interior Ministry (MVD, he had become one of the most influential players inside MVD. Romodanovsky practically had more influence on the ministry’s employees than the minister and his deputies. If orders of the boss could be ignored and only get a reproof, it was impossible to disregard the requests from the main ‘fighter for the clean ranks’. Especially that the majority of the employees in the central machinery of MVD have other sources of income that are related to their jobs besides the main salary.

Romodanovsky is the protégé of Nikolai Patrushev. With his help, the siloviki team obtained control over MVD and demonstrated it to those that were ready to cooperate that nobody was safe from the attention of the Personal Security Office of MVD. At that, Konstantin Romodanovsky was active not only while in MVD but in other structures as well. Thus, in 2003 Chief of MChS Security Office Vladimir Ganeyev was detained.

Due to the influence of Romodanovsky on the balance inside MVD, his appointment as Chief of the Federal Migration Service, which was announced by Vladimir Putin during the Council for Assistance  for the Development of the Civil Institutions and Human Rights, is an important fact. Romodanovsky will replace Andrei Chernenko on this post, who was dismissed from MVD due to bad health.

The new post for the former Head of the Personal Security Office formally means promotion. However, in reality, Romodanovsky got a lower position: he used to be one of the most influential MVD officials, whereas now he is the chief of a service that does not have clear positional advantage. It is possible that later Romodanovsky will increase his weight at the expense of taking FMS from MVD control to the direct control of the President. In this case he will have a powerful resource of personal meetings with Vladimir Putin. The migration policy issue is one of the most topical and complicated because, on the one hand, one has to stop the illegal migration, but on the other, stimulate influx of the labor resources into the country. That is why Romodanovsky has a chance to prove an effective manager, which will give him the opportunity to enter the public political field. Now everything will depend on him personally.

Romodanovsky resignation might have been for several reasons. It might be the victory of Viktor Ivanov, who managed to clean out the important position and would try to appoint one of his men to the vacant seat. Ivanov has all the chances to carry out his plan of seizing the Personal Security Department because he has the opportunity to interfere with the cadre policy. In case the developments go favorably for Ivanov, he will win the final victory over Igor Sechin and Nikolai Patrushev inside the Interior Ministry.

July 18 Sergei Kruglik is assigned chief of the Federal Agency for Construction and Housing Economy.

The new head of the Construction and Housing Economy Agency became the former director of the Construction and Housing Economy Department of the Industry and Energy Ministry Sergei Kruglik. This office is responsible for the development of the new Housing Code, and Sergei Kruglik was the government representative during the reading of this bill in the parliament. His energies partially favored the passing of the Housing Code in the State Duma without any deep augmentations.

At the current stage, Kruglik will have to resolve an important task – create the conditions for the attraction of the private investments into the housing economy, which requires expanding the available law with new items and proceed to their implementation.

In the nearest time, Sergei Kruglik’s boss will be former chief of the Construction and Housing Economy Agency Vladimir Averchenko. He got the post of the Regional Development Minister.

The approaching election cycle of 2007-2008 forces one to take measures aimed at minimization of the potential political risks. At that, the housing and communal complex is becoming one of the priority issues. The exhaustion of the housing funds is reaching the critical point, which jeopardizes this sector with emergencies. At that, according to the new version of the Housing Code, many issues should be settled through the attraction of the private investments, which does not happen in the real life. This problem was entrusted to Kruglik

On July 19, head of the government staff Sergei Narishkin was assigned chairman for the administrative reform commission. Thus he got all the formal authority that his predecessor Dmitry Kozak had. Practically, the administrative reform failed. The transition of its management from Zhukov to Narishkin will increase the positional weight of the latter, however, the reform will not get a new breathe. Besides, Narishkin, despite obtaining all the competence of Dmitry Kozak, cannot be compared with him in the positional influence.

The administrative reform failed to improve the efficiency of the Cabinet. All the more or less significant power competences has already been distributed; that is why Sergei Narishkin will have to do a routine work that does not bring significant benefits – continue the reform at the lowest floors of the executive power.

Another strategy of maintaining ones interest for the large business is the attempt to receive personal protection from Putin against the siloviki. The last one to succeed in this was Mikhail Friedman. Until recently, the Alfa Group and the partners of the company were at the risk of falling pray to the tough actions by the siloviki and the ‘jurists’, that is the ‘new’ elite’. However, at the last moment. Mikhail Friedman managed to move out of the blow. On July 18, during the press conference on the results of the Russian-Turkish negotiations, Vladimir Putin personally announced that he backed the expansion of Alfa into the telecommunications market of Turkey, at that, he noted that there was a person in the meeting room, whose presence was not accidental. Mikhail Friedman was among the businessmen, who attended.

The preparations for Putin’s backing of Alfa began in the informational field on July 14, when Alfa Bank published the report of the main analytical markets and shares office by Christopher Wifer entitled The Investment Climate in Russia: Political Risks and Kremlin Secrets. The report said that the most convenient variant for the business would be the third president term for Vladimir Putin. Representatives of Alfa already knew by that time that Putin would official include their projects into the list of priority ones in Turkey. As a result, the Alfa Group moved out of the siloviki’s blow.