Putin secured continued control over Russian regions

The new decree comes few days before Dmitrii Medvedev takes over as Russian president and Putin himself becomes prime minister.

The government’s new regional powers might give Prime Minister Putin’s a firm hand of control over the provinces. At the same time however, the presidential administration in a press release underlines that the President and his office will remain the top responsible for the state of affairs in the federal subjects.

Thus, while Putin and his government will be responsible for collecting information in the regions, President Medvedev and his administration will be the ones who analyse the figures and take measures, RIA Novosti reports.

The system of shared responsibility over the Russian regions between government and the presidency will be part of the fine balance between Russia’s two new strong men.

Today, Putin also signed a decree on the establishment of a federal control regime in the municipalities. According to the decree, situation reports from the municipalities will be regularly published in order to measure local efficiency. –This is a logical continuation of the evaluation work which is being done in the federal subjects, Kremlin.ru reports.

Read the decree on evalutation of municipalities here (kremlin.ru)

Read the decree on the evaluation of federal subjects here (kremlin.ru