(AFX) - -- Dmitry Medvedev, 40: Putin's former presidential chief of staff, now deputy prime minister in charge of Russia's four priority national projects (boosting medical care, education, housing and agriculture) and a front-runner to be the Kremlin's pick to succeed Putin in 2008. A lawyer who worked with the St. Petersburg city government at the same time Putin was there. Headed Putin's campaign headquarters for his first presidential election in 2000. Considered a member of the liberal reformer wing of the Kremlin circle. Chairman of the board of directors of Gazprom, the world's biggest natural gas producer and exporter.
-- Igor Sechin, 45: Deputy chief of the Kremlin administration. A linguist who worked as a translator in Mozambique and served in Angola, then in the Russian armed forces. Russian media accuse him of being a former KGB agent, but that allegation is unproved. Worked with Putin in St. Petersburg city government. A member of the so-called 'siloviki' faction, with close ties to military and security forces. Chairman of the board of directors of Rosneft, Russia's third largest oil company, and widely considered to be the architect of the tax probe that brought down Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his Yukos oil company.
-- Viktor Ivanov, 56: Another deputy chief of staff, responsible for Kremlin personnel, and a former career KGB officer, including service in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Worked in St. Petersburg city government and in and out of the KGB's main successor, the Federal Security Service. Member of siloviki. Chairs the boards of one of the biggest arms manufacturers, Almaz-Antei and the nation's flagship airline, Aeroflot.
-- Sergei Sobyanin, 48: Kremlin chief of staff. Lawyer, former apparatchik in the Young Communists' League, the Komsomol. Former chairman of Khanty-Mansiisk region and former governor of Tyumen region, both oil- and gas-rich Siberian territories. Chair of the nuclear fuel company TVEL, the springboard for the prospective renaissance of the nuclear industry.
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