Mr Putin's place will be taken by Russia's prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov.

ECONOMIST: Time for a decision | The

As it turned out, General Alexander Lebed was looking thoroughly out of place in President Vladimir Putin's Russia when he died this week in a helicopter crash in his Siberian fief of Krasnoyarsk.

ECONOMIST: A populist Russian general

All the politics takes place in the brain of Vladimir Putin, and he is a trained KGB man, and so he's pretty good at keeping his own counsel.

NPR: Looking Into Putin's Soul Again